AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 1/17/-1/23

AEW Dynamite 1/19

CM Punk vs. Shawn Spears

MD: I get here first so I'm wondering if Phil or Eric will say five words about this? I'll say sixty more: I like that Punk didn't just catch Spears in a fireman's carry but instead teased his rotation neckbreaker and then did a double fake to get him up. Spears knew he was there for the build up and for the bump so he went full mechanic on that and sold the spasm. If they were going to do this, they did it about as well as they could.

ER: This was about as well worked as you can get with a 10 second match. The swinging neckbreaker twisted into a trapped arm turned into a GTS, and it's one of Punk's best thrown GTS in AEW (I guess I can technically say "in the past decade" and be correct) and I sincerely think Shawn Spears of all people took the GTS better than anyone in recent memory. I loved the way Spears took it under the chin and folded forward. 

Darby Allin/Sting vs. The Acclaimed

MD: Different layouts keep the attraction fresh. This one was pretty smart, with them taking Darby out early in a believable, over the top way and then getting the better of Sting by taking the top turnbuckle off. Then came the long heat on Sting, a comeback, a cut off, Darby flying in out of nowhere to save the day, and the big finish. While Darby got a couple of big spots and Sting had his big dive, this was all about showcasing the Acclaimed, and they had a pretty good mix of style and substance. Bowens works to integrate the deep voice trash talking in the match and I'm not sure the camera always catches it well, but him welcoming Darby to the Black Parade on the chair shot was funny stuff, as was Caster doing the Acclaimed Scissor-finger handshake with Bryce after a 2 count when he was holding the two fingers up during the PiP. Sting drew a few Let's Go Sting chants from underneath and I liked how Bowens had to work to knock him off of Caster during the Scorpion; it made everyone look better (Sting for holding on, Caster for not tapping, Bowens for hitting him hard enough to get him off). I like how everyone sold the beatings and injuries and comeback during the stretch. It wasn't just a bunch of moves at the end and despite the fire of the comeback, they would have beaten the hurt Darby if it wasn't for Sting recovering enough to make the save. Sting's dive over and through the table was pretty unique. Maybe not the most photogenic thing ever but that made it feel all the more wild and dangerous. If they're going to keep highlighting Sting and Darby in a way that feels special, they have to keep changing it up, and this one definitely felt different than the last. 

PAS: I am a big fan of the partner-gets-taken-to-the-back trope in tag team wrestling. I think it is pretty crazy that 62 year old Sting is in the workhorse role in this match, but he does a great job fighting off both of the Acclaimed, eventually succumbing to the 2 on 1, leading to Darby's awesome out of nowhere leaping return. I loved the camera angle on that explosion. Sting doing the biggest highspot in a match with Darby Allin was pretty unexpected, and it seems like Sting is stretching himself every time he goes out there. His stage dive was insane. Liked the Acclaimed a lot here too, lots of shit talking and bumping, and their offense looked pretty nasty. I think they are ready for the titles and could see them having a nice run with the belts.

ER: Crazy how much of this match was Sting working two tough guys 2 on 1, keeping a quick pace the entire time until Darby's return. It's unfathomable that Sting is this good at 62, as it's not just young guys bumping for an immobile man. Sting's missed Stinger Splash, with Bowens removing the turnbuckle pad, was an excellent bump that Sting made look like it was happening in 1992. Darby gets taken out immediately with a disgusting spot, getting run into the ringpost with a chair opened around his neck, and his return (coming out of nowhere to blow up Caster off the ring steps with a diving shoulderblock) was perfectly done. But Sting held this whole thing together by keeping things go go go and I just was not expecting that. I say that, but what I was truly not expecting was Sting breaking out one of his craziest highspots ever, doing a Superman dive through a table that was just nutty. I would have been perfectly happy typing "I really liked Sting's Scorpion Deathlock, with a really low base putting a ton of pressure on Caster's back" and instead we all get to talk about Sting reinventing the dive. Darby's big Coffin Drops looked great, The Acclaimed are becoming a must watch act, and I just had no idea the Sting/Darby team would have this durability. Blessed. 

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Wednesday WarGames: Inner Circle vs. Pinnacle

Cash Wheeler/Dax Harwood/Wardlow/MJF/Shawn Spears vs. Sammy Guevara/Santana/Ortiz/Chris Jericho/Jake Hager AEW Dynamite 5/5/21

ER: I have not liked a single one of the NXT WarGames, and not only have I not liked them, I would rank them among my least favorite WarGames I have ever seen. This match was much better than any NXT WarGames, even if it shared some of my least favorite elements of those tedious Games. The high points of this match far exceeded the high points of any NXT Games, and that feels like the most important note. The bleeders bled, even if the blade jobs all seemed very obvious. I loved how Wheeler and MJF's color looked, great thickness, great trails, gummed up in their hair nicely, good blood. Dax and Sammy were cool guys to start a match with. If you looked at the 10 guys on paper, Sammy would have been my choice to start, because he would clearly be best at taking everyone's offense. No surprise, he was. Sammy's own offense looks great, even 30 minutes into the thing he's doing a coast to coast dropkick, scraping his boot across MJF's bloody face, and still getting crazy height on backdrops and flapjacks. 

Chairs get involved early, FTR work in spine busters and a great assisted brainbuster, Hager and Wardlow work some fun meathead spots, everyone mostly fills their role nicely. I didn't need the big West Side Story showdown that is one of the stupider staples of NXT, but it lead to a chaotic final run that outshone the stupid set up. Inner Circle looked like killers separating each member of Pinnacle, and I like how each Pinnacle guy handled it differently. Spears tries to escape up top and Jericho acts like he's going to hang him from a support strut. Wardlow fights off several men and Inner Circle just keeps leaping onto him, doesn't matter if he can toss Sammy 12 feet into the air when Hager and LAX are all jumping him at once. The ring gets ripped apart, FTR drop a spike piledriver, and I always love when a turnbuckle spike gets used. I wanted to see it hooked into someone's mouth or jammed into someone's eye, but I always love it as a weapon. It always looked solid as hell and the aftermath visual of the undone ropes always looks cool.  And I actually liked the finish, with MJF trying to escape Jericho and then pummeling his balls, getting Sammy to surrender by threatening to throw his boy off the top of the cage. I like a good threat to get someone to give in, and while they could have found cool violent ways to end this, it felt like it worked with the characters involved. Now, I wish the camera crew had shot Jericho's bump differently, as none of us needed to see the "corrugated steel" cardboard topper to the crash pad, really could have benefitted from a lower shooting angle. And, of course, the match went far too long, yet it felt like it went by far quicker than the most recent NXT debacle. Still, those classic WarGames matches were like 20 minutes, there's no need for a match with Jake Hager to get 35. 

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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 4/8/20

What Worked

-I have never cared for Lance Archer, always felt like he came off like a real goof and a guy playing at being a hoss without being one, but his AEW usage has been great so far. This match wasn't as Deeply Uncomfortable as last week's, but he killed southern indie guy Alan Angels, and I laughed as Jericho managed to (intentionally) call Angels a different name every time he had to say it. Alan Eagleson was my favorite, and the best was that he was integrating them casually into the commentary (not making jokes and then elbowing ribs after).

-Very smart to do Baker's 2nd hour promo without her washing any blood off her face. Dried face blood promos are universally great. But can she really fix her own teeth if they get messed up, even if she IS a dentist?

-Don't believe I've seen Lee Johnson before but that is exactly how you bump for a big squash match. I love how he took the half nelson suplex on his side, made it look more dangerous than taking a stomach bump.

-Cody/Spears I think went a bit long and don't think Cody should have given up so much to the 10 guy, but overall thought it delivered. Spears is really bad about standing still waiting for offense, but he's quite good at taking offense. I don't think the match would work as well without making Cody's okay tope look good by bouncing across the stage, and I loved how he took the two rolling CrossRhodes near the finish. His pop up butterfly suplex was nice and I actually dug the match ending with a pinned figure 4. It did feel a little cute (especially with Jericho and Schiavone immediately saying they'd never seen that happen, felt a bit produced), but I liked it. The title tournament has potential to produce a few good matches, this was a decent start.

-I don't think I'd want Jericho on commentary every week, but I mostly liked his work here. He and Tony were in the tough spot of having to think the comedy tag was funny, but he managed to do heel commentary without just burying everything in sight and actually putting over action. Plus he made fun of Cody's tattoo which is fair and necessary.


What Didn't Work

-What a sometimes good and oftentimes incredibly bad Baker vs. Shida match that was. There was hardway blood! There were a couple of genuinely stiff shots! There was also an abundance of extremely embarrassing exchanges that looked like they belonged nowhere near televised pro wrestling show. I challenge anyone to find me a worse wrestling sequence from 2020 wrestling TV than that limp first few minutes of this match. They went through this shoving sequence that looked like neither of them would be able to break through the finish line of a marathon. Neither of them looked like they could run ropes, and it peaked when Shida whipped Baker into the ropes and was supposed to miss a dropkick, and threw that dropkick literally the second she let go of Baker. Had Baker not held onto the ropes, Shida would have still missed that kick by 8 feet. These two are both really great at doing sequences of moves without having any idea what the sequences are supposed to look like or what they're supposed to be replicating. They spend several minutes seemingly trying to make as little contact with each other as possible, and then Britt Baker throws two potato shots from the mount and I just had no idea what this match was. I'm not positive Shida can throw an enziguiri that gets above someone's shoulder, because every time she throws one it lands waist to shoulder. And every time I think "maybe she was trying to throw it to that spot?" but then it's always clear by her opponent's time stand still selling that it was just a botch. The gutbuster on the turnbuckle looked good, Shida's running knee looked good, Britt's nose got busted open nicely and that made for some good visuals, but there were stretches of this that were U-G-L-Y.

-My least favorite thing about AEW comedy matches is that they always go main event distance, and that they're always an unintelligible mess of head drops and yucks. Who is dumb enough to go out there and take a couple of dangerous moves when someone else is going to sell it the same as a jockstrap rubbed in the face? The dynamics are so weird. I liked the gag of Nakazawa applying baby oil to make Trent's chops slip off his body, liked Trent's jumping piledriver, and wish we could have had this match go half as long as it did.

-Brodie Lee has had nothing but bad ill-fitting gear since the awkward Bludgeon Brothers port wine gear. I'm not sure what his gear is supposed to be but it looks like it came from Hot Topic's Corpse Bride Collection deadstock.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 4/1/20

What Worked

-I laughed at Cody saying "Anna Jayy with two Ys for some reason"

-I'm a fan of amusing product placement, and having Britt Baker casually eating a chicken sandwich at ringside while trash talking Shida, leading directly to a KFC commercial, worked for me. We don't need to know where she got the sandwich, but we can be grossed out that she was kinda letting it just rest on the guardrail while Shida came over (these are people who clearly don't care about social distancing anyway, as there are 8 people at ringside and they all managed to be clumped together), but Baker just suddenly wanted a chicken sandwich while watching wrestling. My dad is a dentist who treats his daily food intake like one extended meal, so this felt like it captured my own individual view of dentists.

-Marko/Archer was a great use of both guys. Marko shouldn't be competitive against Archer if we're talking level playing field, and he was perfect as the guy making Archer look like a monster in his debut. Stunt took some brutal stuff, loved the release vertical suplex that sent him all the way across the ring, and that high angle flipping powerbomb finish was awesome. Tossing Stunt violently into the crowd would have been made better if there was nobody to catch him due to social distancing, but the whole presentation of this was great.

-Dustin on my TV is almost always going to make top side, and I was way into the Dustin/QT team. Dustin teaming with one of the promotion's scrubs against two identity-free cult members is good wrestling by me. I mean hell yeah, give me a fucking QT Marshall showcase against guys that QT *should* be showcased against. He's a good pro, hit a big dive down the stretch, broke out a sweet corkscrew senton that really landed hard, and had a couple nice double teams with Dustin (including the cool assisted suplex finish). Dustin worked like Dustin, so it was great. Love seeing him run hard into the ropes, slap cult members in the face, hit the - STILL - best powerslam in wrestling, all of it was good. 8 and 9 got in an appropriate amount of offense for what they're doing, this whole thing worked.

-Darby had another monster main event performance, really letting his lunatic superstar shine in a match with too much horseshit. Both of his dives into Guevara were pulverizing (why did the camera show Cody's not good dive instead of Darby's first great dive??) and his coffin drop off a pole was some classic Darby shit. Love this guy.


What Didn't Work

-Omega/Trent was one of those matches that kept winning me and losing me. I liked it when it was 80/20 Omega, felt like a kind of slow, dominant Omega win. And then when Omega was finally taking too long and Trent came back, stomped on Omega's hand and started working him over, I got really into it. I suddenly thought Omega's last couple weeks of sluggishness were being played into a match, where he was dominant but not necessarily capitalizing, and this time it might cost him. Even when Omega came back the match felt like it had a whole new energy, with Trent getting tossed hard into the guardrail and eating a great powerbomb into a support pole. I was hooked. But by the time it just turned into Trent taking a cross legged brainbuster onto Omega's knee and responding by getting up and hitting a tornado DDT, I was back out. I didn't love the end stretch as we got far too much of Trent selling offense by fixing his hair, and Omega selling offense by getting to his knees and peaking to see what time he should hop back up and hit a knee. I think there was a really good match in there, but I didn't love the direction they took it.

-All of the stuff that was supposed to purposely miss in the Shida/Jayy match looked really awful, clotheslines missing by two feet while thrown at 2/3 speed, a Shida enziguiri that missed even with Jayy completely forgetting to duck, and all of that followed up by Jayy getting one of the very ugliest backslides possible. I don't think there has been a Dynamite women's match without some disastrously ugly moments.

-Still not feeling Brodie Lee as the abusive father who angrily breaks a glass in a restaurant when the waiter brings his wife something she didn't order but she doesn't want to ruin the night by sending it back.

-They've been getting into a bad habit of letting the main events run way too long. It's the old 205 Live problem or the PWG problem where a tight 14 turns into a loose 23 and we get too many stops and starts and a bunch of shtick that goes on too long. Shtick is one of my favorite things in wrestling, but it's way tougher than it looks. Great shtick is integrated into the match by the personalities of those involved; bad shtick makes everything grind to a halt and all rules of the match get thrown out the window for the jokes. There was a really good 14 minute match in here, but I got to see a really long "working on material" match. Some of the bits work (I laughed at Brandi excitedly catching Cody's weight belt), a lot of it wore out quick.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 12/11/19

What Worked 

-I really liked Jericho's promo. I'd been off Jericho for quite some time, but his promos are very impressive within the specific environment he's working, and it's clearly because he knows the environment he's working. But...

-It appears that many people hadn't heard of QT Marshall before the AEW tag, because he was Matt Riddle's third ever opponent in what was a really good match. And I really liked this tag! We got Butcher and the Blade naturally cutting QT off from Cody, and while it looked like some of B&B's best moments came during the commercial break, the whole thing was structured simply and everyone came off well. Cody really does come off like a big deal, really looked like a guy worthy of being the star tagging with a nobody. Marshall gets to throw a couple nice punches that are treated as big, surprising moments, and he gets a fun sloppy tumbling dive to the floor onto B&B (I liked it because it looked like whenever Akira Taue would try a tope and it looked more like him stepping over the ropes to the floor real quick). I don't love a lot of Cody's offense, but a good hot tag needs good energy, and he carries that end easily.

-Overall dug Swole/Sakura, even if it went a bit past its effective runtime. It was hurt a bit by actual commercials cutting into it, and them going to the comedy spots in the final 2 minutes instead of the first 2 minutes. Sakura grabbing fists of braids by the roots and snapmaring Swole was great, made exponentially better by Swole popping her right in the jaw after warning her to lay off her head. Do you how long those braids took? Swole should have beaten the shit out of her the rest of the match. Sakura is fun and hits hard, although I wish there was some more focus to her matches, but working with Swole felt like a fun shake up.

-Shawn Spears made it look like Hangman Page has a good lariat. Shawn Spears managed to look good in ALL of his exchanges with Page, while Page was looking like Page. Is Spears the secret super worker of AEW? Page is typically the anchor who takes anyone down with him...but not Spears.

-I'm a sucker for a sneaky manager rana from the apron, and Penelope Ford had a nice one.

-Guevara continues to be the non-Darby MVP of Dynamite. This kid is money and Luchasaurus is a fun opponent for him. Guevara's bump off the top to the apron to the floor was wild, and they integrate some fun takes on spots we've seen, like Luchasaurus catching Guevara by the throat off a standing shooting star attempt. Luchasaurus throws a bunch of strike combos that shouldn't work, but most of them worked here; I especially liked his knee strike that went right to left instead of up. They kept this at a good pace and it went out at the right time.

-Wonder if they're going to run a Hager/Stunt angle where Hager mistakes Stunt for a child and spittle mouth yells at him on Twitter using seemingly random capitalization.

-Main event too long in the tooth and just about everything was shrugged off, but I can't hate on guys going through like 7 tables without me having to see any table set up time. The table bumps came off shockingly natural for being so damn frequent (and meaning so damn little) but they all looked great. Looked Great/Didn't Mean Anything feels like a cool catchphrase for AEW.

What Didn't Work

-...Jericho talked for 7 straight minutes while Moxley stood there making as many silent dumb faces as Jake Hager. I don't need there to be lively interplay, but it just came off really odd to me to have Moxley standing there dumb and confused, thumbs in belt loops. He looked like a kid who was getting a stern talking to from a teacher because he brought his paintball gun to school, and that's just not allowed, even if you DID "leave it in your locker".

-Whipped my head up to the screen way too fast when I heard Swole was going to be on my TV. That was an unnecessarily cruel trick, AEW.

-I chuckled at "shitty little lisp", but MJF ruined it with a bad fake laugh and way too much ham. I just can't take this guy seriously as a threat.

-Kenny Omega wrestles like a chorus member of Jesus Christ Superstar, the one who has to constantly be told to stop abusing jazz hands and spirit fingers.

-Brandi does not have the acting chops to pull off her new role, and I am comparing her to others in wrestling who have done this kind of cult leader role, which is not a high bar.

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