AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/27 - 6/2

ROH TV 5/23/24

Workhorsemen vs Angelico/Serpentico

MD: We've got no Fingers of Death active this week and it's going to be a little bleak for a while with Kingston out. The fifth one is eternally floating and there are various people that will get rotated in there like Christian and Rush and Athena, but today, we're playing moneyball with the Workhorsemen and friends.

Anthony Henry is right off of an ill-timed jaw injury and a sort of a strange journey of being gone and being back and you can tell that he was rearing to get back in the game. JD Drake is the very definition of a DVDVR/Segunda Caida guy and I'm happy for whatever focus he gets. These ROH matches really do buck a lot of the current AEW criticism. They're closer to ten minutes than twenty, not stretched out by a commercial break, and very often, you don't know coming in who's going to win. There was just as much chance that Angelico and Serpentico took this as the Workhorsemen. And given that Workhorsemen won this, just as much chance that they were going to win as Top Flight in the match covered next.  

While the comeback was a lot of fun, my favorite part here was the opening exchanges. Where the Workhorsemen excel most is enabling their opponents to really be the best versions of themselves possible. They're versatile, contrasting in size and shape and style. Drake's excellent at knowing when to give and when not to give. Here he was matched up with Angelico and combined one or two slick and smooth little counters with jamming Angelico on a trip, only to miss a senton a moment later to put himself off balance for Angelico to actually hit. He was able to be there for Angelico so he could hit some of his more tricked out stuff but not make it look overly collaborative either. Then Henry and Serpentico did an extended tit-for-tat exchange that veered just far enough away from looking choreographed to work even though it was all done at high speed with everything hitting. Then, as the crowd was cheering, Henry nailed a cheapshot to take over and start the heat. Maybe it's because he appreciates the roar of the crowd and the thirll of the action more than ever post-injury but he was really living in the moment in these matches, pumped up and gloating during the spaces in-between. He's always a "hit it clean" guy but he was projecting for the last row in the best way in these. They made it seem like Angelico and Serpentico were going to take this before Maria's guys came out for the distraction, but that's part of the Workhorsemen's strength as well, making it all believable not matter what 'it' needs to be.

ROH TV 5/30/24

Workhorsemen vs Top Flight

MD: More of them enabling their opponents to be their absolute best. That meant that Dante was bounding off of Drake's back or leaping over and under and in between the ropes with Henry on a hook for a big move. It meant that Darius was able to storm in after the hot tag as scrappy and gritty and fiery as can be, with big and broad canvases to attack. Darius has pretty snappy punches in a world where no one's doing punches anymore and he stands out even next to his own brother because of it; that said, you couldn't overly fault Dante's rapid-fire forearms right into Henry's recently injured jaw.

And in between those moments, when it was time to grind down on Dante, the Workhorsemen kept things moving while being oppressive and interesting at the same time. Drake's took full advantage of Dante's jumping ability in the transition to heat as he pressed him up against the ropes and smashed him on the outside. It's a move that always looks great and effective, that was especially so here, and that is used at varying times in the match by Drake, but I'm actively glad it didn't show up in the Angelico/Serpentico match because while it can be a 75% of the time move, it really shouldn't be an every match one. It's too unique and conditional for that. This had just the right balance for a competitive mid-card TV match that could have gone either way, the sort of thing people occasionally lament is missing these days.

AEW Collision 6/1/24

Workhorsemen vs Daniel Garcia/Katsuyori Shibata

MD: Got to admit that it seemed like a nice neat way to do it this week. Three Workhorsemen matches over two weeks. Three very different sets of opponents. I didn't know that JD's leg was going to go out here putting a bit of a damper on all of this.

That said, it makes for a completely different sort of watching experience, right? It's 2024. When you peel back why we watch wrestling, old wrestling, new wrestling, it doesn't matter, it's not the same as why and how someone might have been watching it in 64 or 84. A lot of the time when I watch matches, I already know who goes over, right? I want to see the journey. I want to see it play out. I want to see the creative choices and how they're executed. I want to see if they zig in the way I want them to zig or zag in a way that I'd never seen before. I want to see them take the old structures and overlay new bits of execution. I want to see them tug at those most human emotions like only wrestling can do in ways both classic and novel.

Rarely do you really, truly connect with who you're watching though. When you do, it's special. It's like watching a perfect game in baseball a little bit, right? That butterfly in your stomach feeling where you don't want to jinx it. You want them to hit the landing. You think to yourself "man, if this thing just has the right finish and they make it the rest of the way..." I'll admit to watching some 2023-2024 Danielson matches and thinking to myself "I hope he's ok," but then he's been a jerk like that (and has landed on his head errantly a few times too).

Where I'm going here is that shortly into this one, JD Drake messed up his leg or his foot. They could have went home. They persisted. He could have stayed on the apron and had Anthony Henry work the lion's share of it. That would have been a pretty tough sell overall though. For a minute, it seemed like they might go that route, that we might have actually gotten something of a heel-in-peril structure for good or ill. Truth be told, they needed JD in there to shut Garcia down, to turn the tide, to justify a team of two killers like Shibata and Garcia getting dragged under.

Shibata and Garcia are like a modern day Raging and Ravishing, except for Shibata is more cold steel than hot fire and Garcia has a ton of steak to go along with the sizzle. When it happened and they were checking on Drake, Shibata dropped down into his pose and after a moment, Garcia did the same. Then we got that extra bit with Garcia and Henry, with Garcia hitting his new triple twisting neckbreakers (with a Henry heelbutt in the middle to keep it interesting), before Drake came in and asserted himself. The guy could barely walk but he is such a presence and an imposing figure that he could control the center of the ring with sheer gravitational force. Garcia created motion and movement by coming towards him and he powered through and did the rest.

There were moments in the back half where you maybe looked twice or wondered at something feeling just a bit off. Shibata has a great way of making his violence look natural, of just walking over and getting a shot in as opposed to setting up a complex spot (the world's big enough for both approaches), but some of those Tenryu tribute shots looked a bit hesitant which might have had to do to filling in necessary gaps. But like I said, they didn't just go home with it even though no one would have blamed them for that. They kept going. Shibata and Garcia needed a win that meant something, one that had heft and weight to it. Shibata and Garcia didn't need to just win; they needed to overcome. That meant when Drake finally did make it up and hit his moonsault, the fans knew full well what they were witnessing, the effort at play, the gutsiness in front of them, and they popped big accordingly. And when Shibata interjected to set up a win for his side, it meant something. It meant everything that it needed to mean, really a hell of an accomplishment, all things considered.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/9 - 10/15

AEW Dynamite 10/10/23

Bryan Danielson vs Swerve Strickland

MD: Bryan Danielson likes to lie. He's also on his last real run (unless he's lying about that; we don't think he is). He's also had a relatively fragile year and a half. His arm injury in the Okada match is something he's referred to as his worst injury in a single match ever. It makes every match we do have with him, especially on a week to week basis, all the more special.

The evolution of emotional investment in wrestling is a fascinating thing. Forty years ago, fans were invested in seeing the babyface get revenge on the heel. Twenty years ago, a lot of our circle was interested in seeing their favorites actually pushed and be put over. In the last few years, people seem invested on the match hitting correctly and "star"-worthy and being able to say that you witnessed a great or canonical match as it happened.

When we're watching Danielson right now, our emotional investment is helplessly tied to the fear of him getting hurt. That isn't about his athleticism or his professional; it's about us being human and seeing it multiple times over the last few years (and not just with him but with people up and down the roster) and knowing that this is the last chance we have of getting to watch him so frequently.

And Danielson, pro that he is, can use that. People argued that he used it in the Okada match (teasing a head injury to help cover for his actual arm injury) inappropriately. You can make a case one way or another about that; I downplayed it given the circumstances in my review. Here though, it was something more benign but that still gave the crowd a sinking feeling in their stomachs, one that brought them down so that he could build them up once again, which is really what heat in wrestling is all about, and something that's hard if you're just chasing immortality and glory for your match.

A lot of words to say that for a while there, I pretty much bought into the rib injury. He landed one way and sold another, back to front. It was just haphazard enough and he was doing such a good job at going back to it in between moves and to slow himself down that for a little while there, he had me and while it was a very meta sort of engagement, one that wasn't about a babyface being healthy enough to beat a heel, I was still engaged. I was still leaning a little closer towards the screen.

When Danielson hit the turnbuckle, ready to charge back in for another shot, and subsequently collapsed, I was relieved instead of disheartened, because that's the moment I was sure he was just selling. Imagine a car careening off the road, two hands clenching the wheel tightly, going over bumps and almost tumbling over itself once or twice, only to meet up with the road once again. That's what happened here. After that, everything was smooth sailing, but synapses were popping and senses were attuned. The match was back on the road but you, the watcher, were coming off that emotional high and everything heading towards that finishing stretch was more exciting and vivid than it might have been otherwise. You valued it all the more because of your sense of relief. That's what I experienced here. I hadn't been entirely on board at the start (and a lot of that was on Swerve's sideways approach to everything, which slowed down the early matwork past the point of enjoyability for me) but once the ribs came into play, the match caught me and never let go. Chalk it up to top notch selling from a man who loves to lie, even to a crowd that legitimately cares about his well-being. It also makes for very interesting contrast with the Christian match, which didn't have that additional metatextual layer at all, but more on that after a brief check-in on how Eddie is doing.

ROH 10/12/23

Eddie Kingston vs Serpentico

MD: There was an Eddie Kingston vs Minoru Suzuki match on Tuesday, but I really don't have a lot to add. You can picture basically the whole match without seeing it. I liked that they more or less sold impact more and more as the match went on. The early chops were shrugged off in a way that the later ones weren't, which is logical and makes sense. There was just a little more of "Eddie Kingston, Ace" in here even in just how he was able to finish of Suzuki in the end and I was glad to see that.

I haven't touched on anything on ROH TV for a while either. If I had time, I would have written about Athena vs Hirsch from last week; they matched up well size-wise and Hirsch seemed like a unique opponent in letting Athena stretch her considerable athleticism as much as possible. Frankly, Athena should probably be the fifth Finger because of her exceptional combination of intensity, execution, and being in the moment in her reactions all the time, but I'd just have to say those last few words over and over again every week and there's not much there. Her squashes are great; I love seeing how she works the Magic Forearm into her matches, and she deserves exposure, but there's not a lot for me to write about on a weekly basis that isn't simply apparent.

That brings us to Serpentico. I love Serpentico. Talk about a guy who is completely comfortable in his own skin, probably with the best perspective in the entire company. He knows exactly who and what he is and exactly who and what he should be. Within those confines, he tries to be as creative as possible, but never in a way that harms the overall match or what he's there to accomplish. Part of being great at wrestling is knowing what not to do and when not to do it and he's able to walk the line between over the top antics and the match's ultimate goal extremely well. This was to facilitate a future match between Angelico and Kingston, which sounds great. It was a Proving Ground match (Eliminator but with a 10 minute time limit and challenger's advantage in case of a draw). The basic story was one of hierarchy. Serpentico was quick, daring, and crafty. If Eddie caught him, it wasn't going to be good. He went so far as to hit him with the chops in the corner, but eventually Eddie did catch him and while he survived a shot or two and was able to kick out, he really put over the Stretch Plum as nasty and soon found himself tapping. What I liked was that all of Serpentico's offense was in the front couple of minutes. This wasn't a case of him getting caught but then having a big comeback. Instead, when Eddie put him down, he really put him down, which is one of those things you want to see out of an ace. Definitely looking forward to Eddie working the mat with Angelico when they run that.

AEW Collision 10/14/23

Bryan Danielson vs Christian Cage

MD: It's very easy to take Collision for granted. For all that it was supposed to be or might have been, what it has consistently allowed for is long (two commercial breaks long) main event segments on a week to week basis that don't exist elsewhere in wrestling. These can be big 8-man. They can be long tags. They can be for a title or not. They can be a singles match like this.

I'm chosing my words carefully here. There was nothing particular clever or innovative about this match. That's not to say it wasn't smart. It was extremely smart. Things were earned. Things were built to. They let almost every moment resonate. Christian is so good at linking bits of offense with interactions with the crowd and a sort of seething, methodological purpose. I've said it before, but it doesn't feel like the same sort of "spots" almost everyone else in the company are doing, but just an organic, wrathful attempt to hurt his opponent. And Danielson, as we've seen him do so much so recently, reacted to the moment.

Yet nothing in this match couldn't have existed twenty years ago, maybe even thirty. Yet it got as much reaction, thorough, earnest, heated, as anything I've seen in AEW this year. They were a few chants for Christian early, but they didn't linger. He made sure of that. There was one "This is Awesome", after a dive that was earned and a pause in the action that followed. There were no Fight Forevers. Nothing like that. Instead they milked a simple countout attempt where fans in the front row helped Danielson up and the crowd completely ate it up. They went hard. There were some big bumps. They leveraged the hurt arm and Christian was doggedly focused upon it. But they didn't go over the top like you'd see in so many matches that tried to run up a score past five stars.

So, it wasn't necessarily clever or innovative or any single thing we hadn't seen before. Yet, believe me when I say this: it was unique and it was special. Some of that was just in how thoroughly and unabashedly it leaned into those traditional elements; patiently, consistently trusting in the eternal and the primal over the ephemeral, running an experiment it working beyond all expectations. But it was also this: Up until this year, I'm not sure this match could have ever existed in this exact form. In decades' past, even a main event match wouldn't get this sort of time on TV. If it did, there would have to be something over the top to justify it. It would have to be more thoroughly obscured under the veil of sports entertainment trappings. On the indies, it would have been impossible; the sheer length and scope would have led to excess, whether through greed or insecurity.

It took these wrestlers, in this moment, in this setting, on a show that neither made but both saw the potential in, in a company that neither made but that allows for the utmost in creative freedom, to let all of their years of experience and all of their trust in one another, in the crowd, in the manipulative art of pro wrestling, for something so simple, straightforward, and serene to come into being. This felt like where Pro Wrestling should have always been headed, back to the beginning and forward to the future. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/3/21

What Worked

-I was most excited for Britt Baker/Thunder Rosa, and I thought it was worked exactly like it should have been. A lot of AEW women's stuff just turns into a series of iffy timed spots with minimal face/heel alignments, and it made this stand out more. Rosa should have dominated the match while Baker was reeling, and that's exactly what happened. Some parts went on a bit too long, some segments looked off (Rosa had a kick combo sequence where none of the kicks hit), but this was a good layout for them. I liked how Baker stumbled around ringside while taking her beating, liked the idea of whipping her hand into the ringpost to possibly affect her Lockjaw attempt later, and thought the Death Valley driver on the ramp looked mean. I wish Rosa would drop some of the iffy combos and stick to things like dragging Britt around in a cravat, and my favorite part of the match was Baker paying back that cravat, yanking Rosa's head into some nasty knees. Or was it Rosa's dropkick in the corner that Britt covered her mouth for when she saw how hot Rosa was coming in. Either way, more of that. 

-Hardy/Page tag was what it should have been. Luther missed a cannonball off the apron and hit an amusing avalanche (squishing Serpentico in the process, while Serpentico was waving his hands going no no no). Hardy was moving really well, thought his strikes in the corner looked great. Page still has the worst pescado, but Serpentico got wrecked by his spinebuster and lariat. 

-That wedding segment was far more entertaining than I expected. A lot of the inside jokes actually landed, and for what it's worth Sabian and Ford looked really nice. 

-Eddie Kingston is obviously a guy who is going to be great in a lumberjack match. They weirdly didn't have enough lumberjacks (Dynamite is swarming with wrestlers, how do they only have 10 people out there?) but Kingston makes use of the stip and kept throwing Archer out to his boys, and then caused a big ruckus one of the few times he was thrown out. The way Kingston got rolled back into the ring by Billy Gunn, then just scrambled back out to punch someone looked like King doing a Ronnie Dobbs tribute. Archer was pretty clunky setting up his offense here, but all of King's stuff looked killer. He was throwing these wicked knuckle punches and hard kidney shots, his Saito suplex looked monstrous, and I dug the backfist while Archer was preoccupied with Bunny. Archer didn't bring a ton to this, though I liked when he ran himself into the ringpost like a goof. 

What Didn't Work

-Battle royal was pretty uninspiring, hate the new battle royal style of 20 guys hugging the ropes so someone can run spots in the middle. Luchasaurus stood in place slapping parts of his body while guys ran into his limbs, then couldn't lift Stu Grayson on a chokeslam elimination. John Silver really flew on his elimination, and Jericho's Judas Effect elimination on Darius Martin was timed really well and Martin really flew. But most of this was guys not really knowing how to fill time before most decided to leap over the ropes within one 2 minute stretch. 

-I'm still not quite sure how this Sting stuff is supposed to make me feel. I don't know if I understand the payoff here. There are several 60 year old luchadors I like who wear face paint, but they all bleed in dirty rings. There's a high bar for 60 year old wrestlers right now. 

-Main event was a real mixed bag, filled with some big spots and tons of big misses. All of the throws looked really great, especially that German suplex Pac gave to Omega after running him into the ropes. And a lot of the timing on big spots was great, but the execution on strikes was poor throughout the entire match. Fenix incorporates speed and cool spots into matches better than most, but every single kick he threw came up inches short. Omega's kicks had the same kind of curse, just no kind of contact, and that's been Moxley's game for a few years now. Gallows and Anderson not only can't catch dives, and they're even worse at getting into position for dives. At least KENTA showed up and missed a G2S by a foot. Fenix's tope con giro was the highlight of the match, but this was a match that had a lot of good highspots. It was all of the stuff tying the spots together that looked awful. Still, would probably make a cool 2 minute highlight video. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/7/20

 What Worked

-Both Young Bucks standing and watching TV while peering back over their shoulders, set apart so that both were visible for the shot, was such a hilarious artistic decision. I suppose they could have been watching the TV from between their legs, but then we wouldn't have had them posed side by side, watching TV over their shoulders like they were stand-ins on a Nelson album cover. 

-Ringside doctor being announced before a dog collar match is a nice touch, and having Greg Valentine there is even better. Even better than that, is Valentine's graphic that refers to him as a "Dog Collar Match Survivor". 

-I LOVE that Dr. Luther was in the main for Jericho's 30th anniversary celebration, although I wish they had some balls and made it a Jericho/Luther singles match. I had that opinion before the match, and I think it stands after, because Serpentico and Hager were the weak parts of the match. The Luther/Hager sections were clunky (which kind of made the stand and trade look cool and uneven, but other parts less so) and Serpentico is just...not a guy I need to see in a main event. But the Luther/Jericho sections were fun as hell. People laughed when Luther was signed, because obviously it was just a friend getting his buddy a gig. But fuck it, we should get gigs for our friends if we're in a position to do so. Why wouldn't we do that? Luther is in his early 50s and has barely been active as a wrestler for the past 20 years (sheesh I saw him live on an APW show 20 years ago) and he can still clearly go. His cannonball was awesome, dug his big boots, and I liked the way he and Jericho interacted. I've seen nastier Judas Effect elbows, but I dug how Luther dropped to his knees after taking it instead of flat back bumps like everyone else. Fun match, and possibly the only match of the evening that knew what it was supposed to be. 

What Didn't Work

-I wanted a LOT more out of the Cage/Hobbs opener but it fell short. The standing exchanges looked bad, the elbows thrown just looked weak and lacking, the shoulderblocks looked like two guys trying to not hit each other (although I liked Hobbs' late match torpedo shoulderblock), and a lot of this came off like a Lance Storm super heavyweight match. The missed strikes or clotheslines to set up planned offense all came off phony and leading, even if some of the moves they lead to looked good (Hobbs hit a nice powerslam and spinebuster, Cage hit a couple of big drivers that could have landed Hobbs on his head). But the moves didn't mean much to me because of the laziness in setting up literally every move. Almost every piece of offense was set up by a guy missing a slow strike, or a guy slightly overrunning the other and then turning around into a move. Both of these guys are big, but both seem less interested in running into each other and more interested in slightly missing each other to then do a big spot. The big spots looked good. Every single thing gluing those spots together looked bad. 

-We're really on a big moves/no substance roll tonight, and the FTR vs. Evans/Angelico match underwhelmed. Last week was FTR's best AEW performance so far, but they came off like SCU Best Friends or any of the other lesser AEW teams who have their set movesets they're going to work through, and selling is only based on whose turn it is next. Evans and Angelico have been underutilized in AEW, in that I cannot believe some of the flippy goofballs we've seen a ton on TV when they have two of the better flippy goofballs hanging out on Dark. That said, Evans whiffed bad on a flipping legdrop, so bad that there was absolutely no way to cover for it. Dax did his best by immediately grabbing his face, and Excalibur picked up on it and said that Evans' boot hit Harwood in the face, but it is never going to look good when you miss your opponent entirely and then just keep your opponent in position and climb to the top to do another move. That's ugly backyard stuff. A lot of FTR's chain offense looked good, but both teams turned off who was on offense with a switch, so you'd have weird close nearfalls that would lead immediately to the person being pinned going on offense. It was laid out messily, even when it was executed well. 

-Every week they build FTR vs. Young Bucks is a week where the feud seems less interesting. The Bucks are not playing this right, FTR are coming off very miscast as babyfaces (tweeners? men with no alliances?) and Best Friends making hack jokes while winking that they're hack jokes doesn't make the jokes any less hack. 

-Liked the blood, liked Arn's old man spinebuster, liked a couple of the inadvertent falls onto the chain, but did not like the Dog Collar match. They went out and worked a mostly normal match while just so happening to have a chain tied around their necks. There was a lot of time spent on moving the chain out of the way, or adjusting the chain, or making sure they don't hit the chain, and that time needed to just be spent punching each other with the chain. Brodie Lee is also someone who is not great at taking offense anymore. I'm not sure how long that has been going on, but it's something I don't remember being a problem 2-3 years ago. In AEW he takes offense awkwardly and gets into position for offense even more awkwardly. Look how he takes that front suplex (a move he has taken several times in AEW and always takes badly) on his knees, face coming nowhere near the chain it was supposed to be near, and the announcers having to sell it anyway. Moves where he has to bend at the waist are even worse, as he doesn't know to do anything other than make his body a 90 degree angle and freeze. The table piledriver was unfortunate as Brodie's weight went the wrong way, flattening Cody, who then had to go back on offense despite it looking like he had taken the worst of his own move. I liked Cody's dive (doing dives while attached to a chain and another person will always be impressive), but did not like this match. It didn't come off like a violent chain match to me, it came off like a poor Cody/Lee match with them trying to work around the chain as an obstacle. 

-Women's match probably would have made the top side had the finish been a little cleaner. But I don't like those kind of runs where each person knocks the other into the ropes with a strike, which gives them momentum for their own strike, which so on and so on. It looks even worse when the strike gave you momentum to fire back with your own strike, but also you can still stop at will or change directions on rope running. Is the strike moving you, or is it all just terrible. The finish stretch was ugly, with lots of bad thigh slaps, but I liked a lot of the early stuff, liked Serena's leg drags and how she would trap Swole's arm in her leg before rolling over her, but I hate that move begets move nonsense.  

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