AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/8 - 5/14 (Part 2)

Ring of Honor TV 5/11

Athena vs Skye Blue

MD: There's just so much to like about Athena matches right now. She's always on. Always. There was a spot in here where she cartwheeled out of Skye's moves, because she can, because she has that extra bit of athleticism she always had, and it set up Skye doing the same a moment later, the old tit-for-tat heel getting oneupped sort of moment you get at the start of a match like this. Then Athena floored her with a big boot for her indignity. Any of the elements at play that I just mentioned, the athleticism, the standby oneupmanship, the furious cutoff, is absolutely worth noting, but the best, most potent part? In the midst of the cartwheel, Athena was already laughing with malicious delight. She has the ability to come out of complex movements already emoting. We take certain things for granted sometimes, but I can't tell you how rare that is. She never takes a breath and focuses on hitting her spot. She's always living in the moment. There's nothing I personally want more in a wrestler than that level of commitment and immersion. 

To point, about half of her spots don't even feel like spots. They feel like organic violence, linked together by those in-between moments that aren't simply moving from spot to spot but instead swimming through a sea of malice and rage and fury and fear and despair and desperation every other emotion imaginable. You'll note that I said half and I said it like it was some sort of giant accomplishment. In 2023 when almost everything in the match is a spot and not just systemic flowing violence marked with a few called high spots, it is exactly that. Almost no one else on the roster is able to manage it. That's ok for the most part. It's just how wrestling is now. It's the house style, but in this facet, she's able to make it work at a different level more often than almost anyone.

And then there's the layout. We're maybe seven, eight months into this character. She has a 23-0 record in ROH. She's had a string of Proving Ground and title matches. She's had matches now without TV time constraint. She's able to play with callbacks (the stairs), unique traits (controlling the outside and the apron), multiple finishers and now multiple submissions. Certainly she has the forearm of doom that she likes to hit at the start of the matches and plenty of variation on how she does it. Here she was also stealing Skye's finisher (better than Skye can hit it) and Skye snuck in the O-Face (not better than Athena could hit it). Skye brought plenty of intensity and some nasty bumps to the floor. They don't have to cut the camera on each forearm which is well appreciated. And she's able to channel a plucky throwback babyface with her flying body press and even the shock of the all heart one-count kick out and desperate crawl towards the ropes at the end. This was so strong down the stretch that people seemed to even believe Athena when she was raising Skye's hand post-match and there was absolutely no reason in the world to believe. But that's just the hot streak Athena's on now.

AEW Dynamite 5/10

Orange Cassidy vs Daniel Garcia

MD: Cassidy, is, of course, someone else who can work variations. Other than Athena's forearm, the mind games with the hands in the pockets is the other best entry point in wrestling. He also has one of the best ongoing stories in wrestling, the simple, logical, reasonable notion that he's a fighting champion without much care. He'll defend the belt against anyone at any time, on an amazing streak, and it's starting to weigh heavily on him; it's the price of apathy. He may not care but his body certainly does. This match wasn't at all an end to itself but a means to further that along. It built from the 8 man last week; it set up the exhausted promo and the ambush by Fletcher later in the night. It made Garcia look like a beast but also one lost in his own world, completely full of himself and adrift in his sports entertainer persona, and still pretty damn effective past that. Watching, you saw him weighing himself down with it and couldn't help but wonder what he might be without it. Garcia targeted the hurt hand, the hurt knee, the hurting back. Sometimes cutoffs or transitions would be indirect, Cassidy being a half step slow because of the hand and walking into something two moves later because he'd ended up just a little behind. Sometimes it'd be overt, the two of them jostling on the top rope and Garcia striking Cassidy's hand to block a punch. The moves that always seem so smooth out of Cassidy felt labored here, as if he was barely getting over for them by the end. For the second week in a row the Stundog came at an askew angle. He couldn't hook the head on the Beach Break.

I found myself kind of dreading sitting through it though, which took me a minute to parse. This is the stuff I love in wrestling, wrestling-driven storytelling, deep application of creative consequence, the weight of what came before hanging over every moment, allowing the wrestlers to craft possibilities and inversions. This is the good stuff and it doesn't seem overwritten or overwrought. So why wasn't I into it as much here? Why was I dreading it? I'm not sure if this is shameful or admirable, but it comes down to this: there's only one endgame for the scenario. Cassidy loses the belt. His body gives out. His spirit can't sustain. A monster approaches to take advantage. There's no other logical end point. And I, more than a tad too old and too experienced to be so emotionally invested in something like this, don't want to see Cassidy lose and the run end. It's as simple as that.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/8 - 5/14 (Part I)

MD: Instead of going longform this week, I think we'll do a two parter. Yes, it's a shame that Dark and Elevation are gone, but boy do I like house shows and while we're sure they're taping these and we are going to have to live with the fact that no footage is going to show up for some of them (Corbin, KY, we're looking at you), it is nice when a fancam pops up. Catch these while you can. I'm pretty sure the Claudio vs Daniels match was up before and now it's not.

AEW House Rules 5/13 Salem, VA

Toni Storm vs Skye Blue

MD: Obviously Storm's been active for a while, but her WWE time on the main roster was primarily during the pandemic and she only had a handful of house shows once they started touring again. But she was everything that I wanted from a live event heel here, over the top, stooging, stalling, She ambushed Skye early, posed, preened, and then immediately got shown up with an elbow and a headscissors takeover. That led to stalling on the floor, a rush back in, more stooging, and another powder. This time Skye went after her, got ambushed, but then versed a whip into the pole with a nasty thunk. Skye followed it up by beating her around the ringside area until Toni finally rolled in, begged off, and lured Skye into getting draped throat first on the second rope to set up the hip attack to the floor and the heat. It's the sort of stuff that wouldn't work on TV due to hierarchy and the current angle and Storm's current character, but here in front of a couple thousand people in Salem, VA, it was loads of fun. 

I like Skye. I'm probably going to cover Athena vs Skye on Wednesday actually. She's scrappy, leans into her shots, has that great looking knee in the ropes, isn't afraid to take a beating. I think she's got a ton of promise. Here she takes that beating with Toni bigtiming her with the posing and general Outcast attitude leading to a transition where Skye fires back after a slap (and subsequently gets her stuff in: the knee, the spinout kick, the body press). Things switch back to house show mode with Toni pulling the tights right in front of Aubrey, leading to a rare shove by Toni and the old schoolboy ref push spot and a big pop for a fun nearfall. That was followed by some goofing with the spraypaint backfiring and Toni selling it like she was getting electrocuted with Skye superkicking her (and sending it into the third row), before Toni got a lucky shot in and hit the hip attack and Storm Zero out of nowhere. For a sub ten minute match this had an almost perfect balance of early stooging, heat, hard-hitting, and late stooging. Because it hit that balance so well, it was the sort of match people were going to talk about on the car ride home. I have no idea where Storm would have picked up that level of Larry Zbyszko excellence but she absolutely nailed it.

Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs Powerhouse Hobbs/QT Marshall

MD: Speaking of house show stooging, here's QT. They seem to be branding a lot of these shows around the unique (and sort of out of continuity so long as they don't keep following up like they did last time) pairing of Darby and Cassidy, and as much as I'd rather they brand it with Deadly Draws/Lethal Lotteries instead, it's not a bad choice. This was another one where we had the heel charge right in but when the heel is Powerhouse Hobbs and can move with that much accelerated intensity, there's no reason to complain. Hobbs and Darby are natural opponents and it's been a while since they faced off; Hobbs is a different wrestler with different presence than he was in 2020. Starting the match off with Hobbs tossing him about made me want a singles match between these two pretty badly. That led to QT really leaning into the antics. If he had just realized that he should have wrestled like Jeff Jarrett instead of someone who makes sure to do one or two flashy spots a match just to prove that he could, he would have filled a manager who wrestles niche so much better than the wrestler who manages niche we ended up, but it's hard to fault a guy for having pride. As it is, he gives me what I want here, screwing around with the crowd by refusing to get in and then refusing to toss Darby around, right up until the point where he does it one too many times and pays for it.

Paying for it meant that Cassidy got to come in and QT's a natural foil for him as a guy completely unafraid to show ass 90% of the time (it's that 10% that gets him, but like I said, not here). Cassidy went to the pockets, QT bumped his ass off, and Hobbs imposed himself out of nowhere in the best way (followed by some fun mocking of the pockets bit, which makes me think that there's actually a ton of money in a Hobbs/Big Bill heel tag champion run). It was a bit of stretching of Hobbs' character which is one of those things you can absolutely get away with during a house show. This was during the second bit of heat which had QT mock Cassidy to set up a hope spot, the ref miss a hot tag (OC reversing a suplex with the knee and reaching out) due to Hobbs drawing him away, and Cassidy really milking that final moment, going up and over, backwards, upsidedown, and through legs in order to dive across the ring for a hot tag. The finishing stretch was all action, including Cassidy and Allin hitting a new rapid fire Stundog/Code Red combo after Cassidy reversed the Dirtsheet Driver and a triumphant finish that let them celebrate with kids. I don't think they would have worked this quite the same way on TV and even if they did, the commercial break would have made the timing trickier and the effect muddled. Instead we had a straight up southern tag with double heat with babyfaces that don't get nearly enough credit for understanding the alchemy of putting together a match because people are so distracted by the trappings they throw into the mix. My only regret is that we didn't get to see the match vs Moriarty/Big Bill from the night before.

Adam Page vs Big Bill

MD: Speaking of Big Bill, I won't linger long on this. I'm no fan of Page's matches against guys that match up similar to him (like Takeshita), but when you have him in a match with contrast, it can be a lot of fun. This, for instance, was a lot of fun, with Page constantly going to the weapons to get an advantage and Bill leaning wonderfully into that most amazing thing a heel giant can do, act like a cowardly chickenshit heel. That dissonance pokes hard at the part of our brain that registers things like fairness and honor and drives us nuts in the best way. And Bill poked hard at Page's eyepatch-clad injury to get almost every advantage in the match even though he's a literal giant. Between that and all of the character he shows as he lives in the moment, I really hope they have plans for the guy. Anyway, this was big rousing babyface stuff, Dusty in Florida or Texas standing tall against the odds, with an injury, a size disadvantage, and the numbers against him. It's exactly how they should have ended a house show, with the local hero being larger than life.

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