2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Best Friends vs. Sabian/Butcher

 

15. Orange Cassidy/Trent Beretta vs. Kip Sabian/The Butcher AEW Rampage 3/8/24

ER: I wrote about this before I knew the Best Friends suddenly broke up. The concept of a team called Best Friends makes me think about a kind of indy wrestling I've set out to avoid since Chikara, but it turns out I didn't need to soften my stance on that wrestling, because the few who weren't canceled just got better. I didn't know when watching this match I was watching the near end of a great TV match era. Orange and Trent were a team I really loved, and two wrestlers who have turned into must see AEW for me. I'm going to miss the Jefferson Starship TV era. Pixies Cassidy doesn't quite hit the same for me. Anyway. 

There are probably better AEW matches that I've watched and will not be adding to the MOTY List for reasons like "it went on longer than I thought it should" or the more accurate "I recognize it was good but not good enough to move me to want to write about it". A match like this feels like more of an accomplishment than a 20 minute ****3/4 match. They're both going to be forgotten about the next week, so I think a great Kip Sabian performance is more memorable. When I think back to the start of AEW, I think about how awful Kip Sabian was and how much TV time he was consistently getting over...well, almost everyone. I think at one point he was the most consistently featured TV worker. Those were the dark days, with guaranteed Kip Sabian and Private Party and Orange Cassidy matches every week. I couldn't stand Orange Cassidy matches for years. Now it's 5 years later, here's a show with Kip Sabian, Orange Cassidy, and Private Party, and it's the same but everything has changed. Cassidy is now one of the guys that make me watch these shows and Kip Sabian is one of the most improved wrestlers on the roster. I guess not everything has changed, as Private Party are still essentially doing the exact same thing in the exact same spot with the same spots done slower. The main event of this episode was the weakest go nowhere match on Rampage. 

I never foresaw loving Orange Cassidy, and I certainly did not anticipate Kip Sabian ever being a wrestler worth watching. But he now is, that. It happened, and it's cool. Cassidy came into the match with his back and ribs wrecked from his title loss to Roderick Strong, and Sabian and Butcher went after those ribs with backbreakers. There were two very cool physical momentum reversals, where Cassidy was slowed and couldn't pull off his round the world DDT, and Sabian and Butcher each stopped his momentum mid-move in ways that felt like both were really fighting to stop it. Butcher had wobbling legs as he powered OC up for a powerslam, then lifted him up by the front waistband of his joggers high enough to drop him over his knee. Sabian always looked like he was fighting OC's momentum, even on roll-ups. 

When they weren't working over his back, I thought Sabian was great at working around Cassidy's selling and his shtick. I liked the spot where Cassidy was fighting to tag out with his hands in pockets, as Sabian expertly crashed around him and into Butcher, credibly fucking up repeatedly against an armless man. All parts of Sabian's game have been tightened. Five years ago I couldn't imagine Sabian as a guy with good elbow smashes, but now he has them. He was always someone who could bump, but now his bumps seem more directed towards the match he is having than an empty athleticism. His bumps are an essential part of Trent's hot tag, he's great at being in position for the finish sprint, and he does it all while taking in-character bumps. The way he kicked his legs in panic while getting tossed with a backdrop, or getting yanked into a Saito suplex and knowing just how to get where he needed to be to lean into a knee, he does it like him. 

Cassidy's Superman punch to set up the finish looked its best and came in with force, like he wanted to get it in quicker than the one earlier that had been caught by Butcher and ended with his back being punished by a half nelson backbreaker. Instead of flying right at Butcher he came at an angle, blindsiding him into a Beretta Strong Zero. Cassidy is impossible to keep down but stayed with it in ways that didn't make Sabian and Butcher's back work feel stupid, it just made him seem tough. It's been five years, the surprise of my Orange love has finally faded, and now I'm spending my time writing glowing things about Kip Sabian. I'm convertible. Who will be the next to convert me?  

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/28 - 11/3

AEW Rampage 11/1/24

RUSH/Dralistico/Mortos vs BEEF/JD Drake/Butcher

MD: Really enjoyed Rampage this week overall. Very "Fastest Hour of TV" vibes. They started in the ring for this one, cut to Stokely after, did the Vendetta squash, paid off the Stokely bit and did something out of normal format with Taya, then went straight into the three Top Flight matches, one after the other, all linked with the entrances, and with the undertone of Moxley-influenced aggression in the air more so than usual on AEW TV (that doesn't involve Moxley directly) right now. Very much a "Restore the Feeling" sort of show for me, but then my feeling and other people's feelings tend to be different. I'll miss it if and when it's gone just like I miss Dark and Elevation.

And obviously, this was a great way to start. Look, I like the Outrunners, but I do think there's a ceiling to them and that the act will only have legs for so long. I see a higher ceiling for BEEF. Yes, he's over the top, but he's over the top in a believable way. The Outrunners are characters. They're very fun characters who are enjoyable to watch, but BEEF comes off as more human. You might know a guy like BEEF. You might tell yourself and everyone else that you wished you didn't, but then so do JD Drake and Anthony Henry, right? Deep down, though, having someone so earnest and enthusiastic in your life just makes it better. Do I think he can be world champion? No, but I think he can be a challenger for the TNT or Continental Title that fans might really get behind on a chase.

The most interesting guy in this one was Drake though. Arn Anderson is on record that he thinks he (being Arn) was a terrible babyface, that he didn't have the "skills," which in this case more or less means deep armdrags and dropkicks. I'm not sure if he really believes that of if he's being self-effacing but in saying it, he shortchanges just how good a babyface he was and what makes a good babyface in the first place. It's not "skills", it's emotional connection. I imagine Drake might say the same thing Arn did, but he was really good here being shoehorned into that role. He engaged with everyone around him, hitting the tranquilo pose early, played face-in-peril sympathetically but with fire, downright seething when RUSH stopped the run across the ring to kick him in the face, and then fired back for the hot tag, standing toe to toe with RUSH before making that final, pained turn to tag BEEF in.

Butcher fit right in too. Obviously you want him slugging it out with RUSH. You want everyone slugging it out with RUSH. There was a bit early on too where Dralistico really played up that little dog/big dog dynamic with his brother which I find effective. This was good all around. Only thing I missed here was one of those Jake pre-tapes to set the stage. BEEF has this sort of transformative element to him that makes everyone into Giant Machine or Piper Machine like in 85. Someday we'll get BEEF/Mark Briscoe interaction and the skies will part and the angels will sing.

ROH TV 10/31/24

Athena vs Abadon

MD: Abadon's an interesting case. If you go back to the territories, they'd move around like Kamala or other monsters, never staying in one place for too long. Here, they're one of the only honest attractions (in as they're used like one) that AEW/ROH have. They're gone more than than they're here and they're instantly credible and dangerous when they arrive, generally able to challenge a champion only to come short. Then they're away again long enough to make you forget about the loss so that they have an impact when they come back. I know in the margins they're working indies and training but the lack of ringtime is probably not ideal. 19 matches in 2024 with a third of those being squashes on ROH TV coming in at less than 2:30. 2023 was much the same. It's a tricky balance.

Part of me wonders if we're reaching the end of Athena in ROH. It looks like Billie's story is cresting again and Final Battle is around the corner. Plenty of people who don't actually watch ROH have been clamoring for it. Everyone who does likely wants her to stay. I do understand that what ROH is might change in the future (and it might not) but it gives her the freedom to stretch. This went almost 20 minutes, more with the pre and the post-match. It had all the room in the world to breathe. I love AEW commercial breaks in some ways, but Athena doesn't need them like others do. She is fully formed, self-actualized, able to structure her matches in the ideal manner and make the most out of every second. This sort of match would have been very hard to pull off in this exact way getting this amount of time on Dynamite or Rampage. I think in historical terms and the comp we'll have some day of Athena's Proving Ground matches and big defenses will shine, just like she does as the biggest fish in AEW's smallest pond. If she does get moved up at some point, then she should be featured on the same level as Mercedes, getting her own segment each week. On paper, maybe that's a bold risk. In actuality, it's an investment that would pay off in time.

But there's a match here and like I said, it went almost twenty. It was wild, with a slew of big spots that went like they should have or that were all the more impressive for maybe not. Some of the latter was simple physics. A lot of it was Athena's reactions in the moment. There were plenty of moving parts here and it was very much on her to make this feel organic. Remember, Abadon's had something like 120 matches and a big chunk of those are squashes. They did a good job sticking to character and keeping things moving, being where they needed to be when they needed to be, and this was their career match, from what I've seen, but it's a little different than Athena's 17 year career.

Athena reacted to everything, from planned spots, to mishaps like the chain falling off her band, to the crowd chanting this is awesome. She reacted from Abadon absorbing the magic forearm at the start all the way to the relief of hitting the crazy O-Face into the chairs and escaping with the belt(s). You couldn't see the strings because she managed to be on so thoroughly throughout, whether it was following some sort of plan or a temporary deviation from it. I can't stress how important that is, how rare that is in 2024, and how it turns a match from a garbage spotfest into an immersive, horrific experience.

Athena went from fear to seething frustration to seething rage to seething agony. There was a lot of seething in this one. Abadon's reaction to the blood from the skewers was spot on as well, and even better was Abadon's frustration after being unable to finish Athena off on the floor. That was the moment that the match shifted inexorably in Athena's favor, the moment where her persistence and determination and madwoman drive broke Abadon's will. For the first time all match, maybe even since their debut, Abadon showed cracks, and Athena drove a wedge through them before shattering her with the O-Face. That this went so long, had certain things that didn't work as planned, and still turned out to be compelling and cohesive is a testament to one of the best wrestlers in the world and a very game opponent and one more reason that we should cherish this ROH while we can. 

BONUS: AEW Collision 11/2/24 - Kyle Fletcher

I had tossed this in a tweet (https://x.com/MattD_SC/status/1853065072689496430) I'm doing a lot of these short form things over there, so do follow and follow along) but wanted to put it here as well. 

It's no big secret what I wanted MJF to do at Wembley. Channel Larry Zybzsko and stall. The stalling wasn't the point though. It was the means. The heat that it would have gotten him wasn't even the point. That was the means too. At the end of the day, heat generally is. It's a means to fuel the potential energy behind a comeback. The comeback is the thing. When you have a face and a heel and a crowd that cares about the difference, it's everything.

The traditional goal of pro wrestling has always been to figure out what a crowd wants and deny them it and deny them it and deny them it so that when they get it, it's the greatest feeling imaginable. For decades, what they wanted was to see the babyface win and the heel get comeuppance. That's not nearly as true in 2024. Right now, much of the audience wants to be part of an experience, want to have bragging rights for being live for a great match, to chant "This is Awesome" or "Fight Forever." And no one enables them to do that more than Will Ospreay. He's the poster boy for it. He gives the fans what they want. So if MJF was going to be the greatest villain of his age, how could he really get under the crowd's skin? By denying them that as much as possible in the grandest venue possible. Then, in the last third of the match when Ospreay became unchained and hit spot after spot perfectly and brilliantly, it would have felt like the greatest relief (and release) in the world. 

Max went a different way with it. That's fine. People still liked the match. We're not here to talk about that. We move on. We look to the future. Let's talk about Kyle Fletcher. I love AEW's commercial breaks. You learn so much about wrestlers by seeing how they fill time during it. This is where AEW generally sticks the heat (of shine/heat/comeback since I'm using phrases haphazardly) in its matches. That's the most important part of the match! I'm not entirely sure it would even exist for most AEW matches without the breaks because the tendency to go 50/50, your move/my move and get all the cool stuff in might be too strong.

People have been hot and cold on Fletcher the last couple of years, but I've been watching him during those breaks and I have to admit, I like what I see. He's been precociously good at interacting with the crowd, his opponent, the ref, at letting things breathe, at showing himself as a fully fleshed out character with emotions and opinions and able to emote and present all of this to the crowd. He's not just hitting stuff. He's not just sleepwalking through it until it's time for the big back-from-break spot. He's alive. It's just for a lot of the rest of the match, you didn't see it nearly as much. Great (surprising!) instincts, just maybe a career of hanging with a certain sort of crowd who had learned to get over in a certain sort of way, right?

So now he's turned on Ospreay, has cut his hair to differentiate him, and as seen on Collision's Komander match, has done something even more striking. He's managed to start moving differently. That Fletcher who we'd seen peek out during the breaks is starting to show himself from bell to bell. He used his robe as a feint to cheapshot Komander to start and then moved slowly, methodologically, with purpose. He grinded him down, played to the crowd, menaced Abrahantes. When I tried to explain what made Mark Henry so special during his Hall of Pain run, the best I could come up with was the notion of "negative space", what you did between the moves and the spots. Giving life to those in-between moments turns a match from a series of things that happened to a consistent, engaging, immersive reality of its own. Fletcher was absolutely nailing that here.

And then, in the back third (after the break and after he finally nailed Abrahantes), he let Komander off the chain and they hit bombs and fireworks on the way to the finish. The crowd responded, for the most part, as they ideally are supposed to, chanting Komander's name and getting behind him. Sometimes you find a spark of hope in the most unlikely places, right?  

That brings us to Full Gear and Ospreay. I don't want him to stall. That made sense for Max. It made sense for the cowardly heel champ full of bluster. Fletcher's wrestling like someone with something to prove and he has more to prove against Ospreay than anyone. What he has to prove, however, is that he's his own man. If he comes out and wrestles Ospreay's match to prove that he can hang, that he's just as good as him (exactly what Max did!), that doesn't prove to anyone that he's his own man. It just proves that maybe he's as good an Ospreay as Ospreay.

Fletcher seems to get this, right? He seemed to get it in the Komander match, way more than I would have expected him to. How does he prove it then? He goes low early and then grinds Ospreay down the whole match. He makes sure Ospreay doesn't hit his usual first-few-minutes dive. He evades and avoids hope spots so that Ospreay doesn't even get to hit them. He denies Ospreay his offense. He denies the fans the chance to see Ospreay do his thing. They get absolutely nothing for the first two thirds (but the joy of booing), not because Fletcher is a coward but because he's an absolute bastard. Then? That last third? They get everything. Maybe it scores a half star less on the following Friday morning, but if Fletcher can pull it off, it would be an experience the crowd would never forget. It would define who and what he could be moving forward. It would give AEW another piece they badly need. I guess we'll know soon enough.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/5 - 8/11 Part 2

Ring of Honor TV 8/8/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Alex Reynolds/John Silver

MD: I'm tempted to wax poetic for a paragraph about the Problem of Sammy. Let's do it. He's been Lugered/Big Showed, in part due to the Jericho Vortex, and in part due to his own personal situations, and even just the inertia of being a featured guy for five years. It means that maybe he hasn't kept pace with Darby and MJF and even Perry. They kind of tried out the Cole/MJF story with him leading up to the four-way last year but Cole was the one to benefit from him. I don't know if he turns on Dustin or wins the tag titles with him (Dustin holding a bunch of ROH titles and challenging Lee Moriarty in a pure rules match would be amazing but that's beside the point) or what, but coming back as a babyface with a topknot doesn't feel like it's going to work. What would? I have no idea. An excursion? Feud him with Atlantis, Jr. in both settings. Maybe give him the TV Title and instead of having him complain about not getting five star matches backstage, have him defend it week in and week out and give him the sort of "list" that Cassidy in 2022-2023. Regardless, I'm glad it's not a problem I have to solve, because it does feel like a problem.

I praise Reynolds and Silver a lot; a good reason for that, as I've mentioned, is that they're able to somehow instill order upon the "everything breaks down way too early" style of tag team wrestling we've gotten for the last ten+ years in a way almost no one else can. They're also very adaptable. They've been monster heel henchmen, lovable loser underdog babyfaces, pre-show comedy act staples, and now sort of a dangerous mid-card heel act. They don't always do exactly what I'd want them to do, but they are very good at what they do.

I'd call this a studio show main event. Lots of comedy to start with Dustin and Sammy both doing the dive tease/breakdancing/pose. Dustin's comedic timing is great, of course. It was interesting how protected he was as a star when it came to the knee. He was beat down last week; he hurt it again on his own bulldog (he drove the action and reaped the consequence); he then fought off the Dark Order on the floor; Caprice mentions that if he's able to stand up on the apron, then he's ok, and he does; at that very moment, Uno comes in with the chair. Since he was going to take a beating for a while, it was fine, but that's not haphazard. It's calculated and has an effect, conscious or otherwise on the audience. Very canny. When Dustin does get the hot tag, it's entirely based on redirecting Reynolds' own momentum, first over the top and then into the power slam where he really just falls away and turns him. Again, that matters. He's not standing tall and firing back; he's showing the weight of the leg damage and finding another way, as hope does. Sammy was fine here; he works well with Reynolds/Silver, but he's definitely a Problem to be Solved.

Rampage 8/9/24

Darby Allin vs The Butcher

MD: TK's keeping me busy, huh? It's a good problem to have. I'm not sure how to tell you anything you wouldn't already know about this coming in. It was a remarkable match, a remarkable Butcher performance, a remarkable Darby performance. You should watch it if you haven't already. My brain is always going when I watch wrestling. That doesn't mean I'm not connected. That doesn't mean I'm not drawn in. It's part of why I value immersion and suspension of disbelief so much. Here's what I was thinking early on in this one:

Back in the day, old timers used to talk about how the fans knew wrestling was worked but that they wanted to be the one match on the card that made them doubt it. A "Yeah, most of it's fake, but that match maybe wasn't." sort of deal. A modern version of that might be... "Yeah, they work out all the spots in the back, but things went so crazy there that they had to be adapting on the fly!" Something like that. One thing I love about Darby is that he (like an unlikely comparison point, Nick Bockwinkel), as a character, always wants to control the start of his matches; he usually comes in with a bang. Here, he charged right in and got nailed by Butcher's foot. And his mouth started to bleed. Butcher went from slamming him leg first into the ropes to starting to work over that jaw. Darby responded in kind by spitting blood in his face. Savage? Maybe, but I was smiling big at that, drawn in. And yeah part of that is because it felt like an adaptation in the moment, and that, compared to a lot of picture perfect precision counter wrestling, felt more real. It just did. And damn it if that doesn't draw the eye and rouse the heart.

The rest of the match was an absolute mauling. Darby would throw himself at Butcher to try to get an advantage. More often than not, he bounced off. Have you ever played one of those little stick figure physics engines sort of games? It might just be picking up and dropping the figure. It might be sending them on a catapult. That was this match, eyes glued to the screen as Darby's body crashes and burns from every angle and every direction in the most sickening ways possible. A beautiful trainwreck. What was the purpose? I don't know. It made Darby look all the more like a star for winning definitively (yet believably!). It made Butcher look like a force. Maybe they can sneak him onto the All Out card? Maybe he'll be there for the Casino Gauntlet and this will get enough word of mouth that people will check it out. The joy of Darby is that while I still overthink it, he's got me overthinking it in all sorts of different and fun ways. Go track this one down.

Collision 8/10/24

Darby Allin/Hologram vs Tony Nese/Josh Woods

MD: I'm three matches in of Part 2 this week, so let's talk about Hologram. TK's alluded that the specific name/character has been in his head for a long time. Allow me to take a couple of liberties here. My guess is that this guy lived in TK's notebook for decades. Hologram is very much the sort of character that someone would come up with while doodling on the side of a notebook in school. He's the sort of guy who could wrestle alongside Mr. JL or Ciclope or Super Calo. It's a rabbit hole and best to just peek down it a little, but I don't think you can understand AEW without thinking about that notebook. It's sort of the "Rosebud" in this equation to some degree, right? And I am not at all unsympathetic. I'm not far off in age and had my own notebooks with my own very rough character drawings in the corner and lists of people who could be in various imaginary factions (be it a New Dangerous Alliance or different reshuffled X-Men teams). Here, it's especially a boon though, because the character is something pure, and true, and genuine, something that should appeal to kids because maybe, just maybe (I could be wrong!), once upon a time, a kid came up with it. It's anecdotal, and you'd want to follow someone who talks about the business and not just breaks down matches, but I get a sense a lot of WWE's recent success with a younger audience is due to the accessibility and ease of Peacock, the fact that they can just find the footage on their own with a few clicks of their remote. If AEW has some streaming solution upcoming, then similar kids discovering the product are going to find a welcome avatar in Hologram waiting for them.

And as for the rest of us? I liken him to Blitzkrieg in WCW. When he showed up in WCW in 99, it absolutely blew people's minds. It's not that he was doing things that much more spectacular than everyone else (though he was doing things that were just enough different to stand out). No, the bigger thing was that he came out of the blue. We were all smarks on the internet following six news sites, reading Al Issacs and waiting for Yokozuna to join the Hart Foundation (that was a couple of years earlier, but you get the idea). We thought we knew everyone and everything, and if we didn't, then we knew someone who did. We had a network of people following everything out of Mexico and every sleazy indy Japanese promotion. And here was this guy that we couldn't place doing amazing things. The fact that he was unknown to us (teenagers and young adults who felt like we knew everything) was half the appeal. Hologram is a bit of the same. It's not that we weren't aware of Aramis here, or that we didn't have some inkling of his contract issues over the years, but he wasn't on our radar or on the the public radars of the people who we trust when it comes to lucha to come in to AEW with a new character and make a mark. The vignette aired. We got word who he was. He debuted. Sometimes it's just nice to be taken by surprise, even for us, especially for us. 

As for the match itself, it was another great showcase that really gave Hologram an extra bit of rub. Despite being a star (and one with a rocket strapped to him maybe), Darby played face-in-peril and let Hologram be the hero, both coming in to clear house after the hot tag and by getting the cradle win on Woods. Before that, they had a great shine where Darby's quick shots got to pair with Hologram's slick shots and they somehow became even more than the sum of their parts. Just great, great basing by Woods and Nese here (and Sterling/Daivari on the Coffin Drop by Darby to set up the finish). They were everything and everything looked great. Just like Reynolds/Silver, Nese is a guy who never shoots for fame or fortune. He's the opposite of getting his shit in. He's an absolute professional, a total mechanic, willing to stooge and get clowned for the sake of his opponent and the match. He's the least cool heel in the world and so much more valuable for it. And Woods is someone that every time I see him, I wish I'd be able to see him more. This did exactly what it set out to do and the Hologram train rolls on. The trick now is to keep him featured so he's on people's minds every week. 

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AEW (And CMLL) Five Fingers of Death 3/25 - 3/31

AEW Collision 3/30/24

Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli/Katsuyori Shibata vs. Dutch/Vincent/Lance Archer

MD: Not quite an all-star trios match but certainly a unique one with Shibata in the mix. We're just at the start of him as a weekly player as opposed to an attraction and on some level, I feel like he'll add as much as Okada and Ospreay, maybe even more, because he is a contrast to a lot of the roster. Every match up with him feels like a fresh match up. Even with Archer, Cagematch says he's only faced Archer two times before this and they paired up really well to start. Likewise the early Dutch vs. Claudio bits where Dutch provided Claudio a massive canvas to work his strength spots on. 

The meat of the match, however, was Danielson working FIP against the unified trio. It was easily explained away by Danielson's jetlag and the Righteous and Archer's superior chemistry (even Danielson and Castagnoli have only teamed up ten times or so in the two years of the BCC existing). Plus, he got to absolutely dominate all three (including him getting up on the apron to take Archer out with a knee with lightning fast speed, really) right before he got dragged down by a Vincent cheapshot out of nowhere. It was a great face-in-peril performance, one that will probably get overlooked in time, but stood out hugely to me on a random Saturday night at the end of March. Danielson knew he had Claudio's strength and Shibata's suddenness and technique on the apron so it made sense for him to be in the role. He had to look strong despite the totally valid excuses because each week he's being judged against what Ospreay is up to. That said, he had to ensure that Archer, Vincent, and Dutch could keep dragging him down for their sake, the sake of the match, to justify this being a main event. And while Archer's instantly credible whenever he enters the room, the Righteous are, through no real fault of their own, deeply below their opponents in the hierarchy.  

That meant that while Danielson would be able to flip back over Dutch or get kicks in on Vincent in the corner, he'd make sure to give his opponents their due: Vincent with his ferocity, Dutch with his size, and Archer with the monstrous combination of both. Given that the crowd was hot all night and it built the pressure just right for Claudio to get the hot tag and come in like a freight train, and then, after everything broke down and we got the swing and various finishers, for Shibata to close things out almost simply by being himself. Overall, a difficult performance managed masterfully by Danielson, and we will continue to appreciate how lucky we are to get to see it week in and week out while we still can.

CMLL Homenaje a Dos Leyendas 3/29/24

Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley/Matt Sydal vs. Blue Panther/Mistico/Ultimo Guerrero/Volador Jr.

MD: Speaking of being fortunate, well, there's this, isn't there? Something that would have been impossible to imagine ten years ago or five years ago and that would have seemed very unlikely just one year ago even. For a lot of us, it's up there with the Sting retirement match as something that's just unbelievably special, so much so that it's hard to even put down words for. Arena Mexico is special. When you get a crowd that's really committed to what they're seeing, it's like nothing else in the world in 2024, or 2014, or 2004, or even maybe 1994 (Outside of Puerto Rico, I imagine). While there is ritual and expectation and that wonderful pro wrestling reality that exists with the particular style of CMLL's lucha, there's still a level of suspension of disbelief and immersion that almost undoes the chemical change that has affected (afflicted?) pro wrestling over the last few decades and has completely changed the incentives of wrestlers. 

That's the environment that the BCC and their erstwhile "captain" Matt Sydal (with his Peace, Love, and Pro Wrestling tron to counter the Violencia sin Limite BCC shirts) walked into. And while it didn't give me 100% of what I wanted, it gave me a lot of it. I wish that there was a longer feeling out process with initial pairings. I get why on a time-crunched PPV that was unlikely and it's total valid to skip that part in a trios or atomicos match in order to get straight to the heat. That's a totally valid way to build a match like this and maybe extra heat was what the doctor called for here given the stylistic issues and, frankly, inexperience of most of the BCC in maintaining the rhythm and flow of a lucha beatdown. I just wanted to see initial pairings, that's all. As for those shortcomings, Claudio was dropped in as natural as could be given his background, the ultimate base in so many ways, and I just can't imagine a world where Jon Moxley, if given two months of weekly Friday and Monday shows, wouldn't be an amazing traffic director; for his first try, he wasn't exactly Satanico in there keeping things moving though.

That meant you ended up with some weird, weird stuff where the more familiar you were with the trappings, the more it'd take you out of the moment. I'm talking about Blue Panther getting a full, momentum shift (mandate-of-heaven) comeback with the big Mistico leap into the ring, only for the BCC to take back over on Ultimo Guerrero (the best of all time in getting beaten up in a corner and still raising the roof to show the fans that he's the toughest star you've seen) to set up that lovely bit of ritual, his power bomb off the top and the real final third of exchanges and break-ups. As a match in a vacuum, it absolutely worked. It just threw me given that watching lucha in Arena Mexico is always a quarter about expectations being met and worshiping at the altar. 

There were a lot of great individual moments though: Panther celebrating Danielson at the start (and celebrating Danielson's celebration of himself, of course), Danielson embracing the yes chants, all the energy that led to things breaking down with that initial beatdown, Sydal being a spin kicking attack dog for the BCC, the giant swing on Volador, Claudio destroying Ultimo Guerrero after he raised the roof, and then the exchanges at the end, with Guerrero and Moxley scrapping and Mistico subverting the Yes chants like only he could, and Claudio basing for everyone, including allowing Panther to be absolutely fearless, down to just charging through the knee when Danielson hit him with it. So yes, overall, very special and they're even giving me what I didn't get here next week by running Danielson vs Panther back. Yes, I have a few nitpicks but absolutely no complaints for something we're all but blessed to have in the end.

AEW Rampage 3/29/24

Dustin Rhodes vs. The Butcher

MD: There are a lot of bad faith arguments about storytelling with AEW. I thought about engaging but we don't really engage with bad faith arguments around here. We focus on the text itself more often than not. Let's do that. Dustin's deferred his retirement which he was thinking might be this year. He feels good. He's ready to go. Butcher and he have history, so a feel good promo was interrupted on Wednesday. That history includes a Bunkhouse Tag back in 2020. They have familiarity. Usually a match on Rampage is either setting something up (including heating someone up), paying something off, or an attraction for a live crowd. Menard was in the main event here to do the last bit (and to set up a chain reaction ending with the Bucks standing triumphant if not tall), but there's probably something to Dustin, being an old WWF guy, popping a Quebec crowd. 

This was straightforward and leaned on that familiarity. That meant that they were able to make things that were less than smooth, like an early backslide attempt, feel like organic struggle and not miscommunication. It meant Butcher was ready for the first dropdown punch. It meant that he was able to capitalize and yank the arm over the top to take over. He had very straightforward, credible offense, mainly headbutts to the arm, but I'm never going to complain about headbutts to the arm. He was able to use it to cut Dustin off and take back over. Dustin, despite his size, was always so good at making himself smaller when he sold, and he did so here, pulling inwards with the arm to get the point across. He was able to tap into his bombs (like the code red) as hope spots, but Butcher was right there to take back over, playing to the crowd as he pressed his advantage. Down the stretch, Butcher had one last tricked out arm assault, a pulling fireman's carry right into a crossface which was something that would have played just as well in 1960s France, but Dustin was able to pay off the kneeling punch, hit his short power slam that the commentators weren't sure he could hit, the Cross Rhodes that he needed two tries on, and then the final reckoning for the win. We won't know for a couple of weeks if this was to heat Dustin up for something or just was an attraction for the crowd, but every chance to see Dustin work from underneath and get a crowd behind him is worthwhile and this crowd was lucky to experience it at least one more time.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/21 - 8/27 Part 1

AEW Collision 8/26/23

Orange Cassidy/Penta/Eddie Kingston vs. Kip Sabian/Butcher/Blade

MD: One of those random WAR like six mans that we get just a bit too rarely in AEW. It's good to have Eddie back between the injury and the excursion and the fans felt the same. Penta handled most of the shine (against Kip who reacted but didn't do anything novel like I'd expect, though at least Penelope got to take out Abrahantes on the glove catch) and Cassidy most of the FIP (after a very solid transition, with Kip goading Cassidy right into a Blade superkick, which IS what I'd expect). Penta and Abrahantes did most of the apron-working, including a freshly squeezed chant that was perfectly timed, with Eddie's only contribution being a memorable face made at Butcher. Butcher and Blade were pretty vocal in there with their 1966 Batman Goon muttering, like Butcher calling out a powerbomb that would never come and Blade shouting "Butcher and the Blade!" in a moment of beatdown on Cassidy.

It was a bit of a consolation prize for Kip and co. for not making the Wembley card. It was a longshot but Kip is local and original and worked hard to reinvent himself and Butcher and Blade are loyal, capable soldiers who pull off whatever's asked for them. The crowd was behind Cassidy when he worked from underneath, but they really wanted to see Eddie and he delivered, coming in hot, chopping everyone, and then starting the chain reaction of spots and linked finishers that set off the stretch. This ended with a sort of WWE dark match main event multi-man feel, with everyone getting their stuff in, but with an AEW twist, as all of that stuff ended up connected together. Eddie capped it all off by debuting a sliding elbow (obviously "a move he learned from Japan," which if a more present announcer was there, might have actually been noted). Fun stuff to open up a go home show and set up the post-match in-ring interview that followed.

Sting/CM Punk/Darby Allin/HOOK vs. Swerve Strickland/Jay White/Luchasaurus/Brian Cage

MD: Challenge here was to follow a fairly similar match. Well, not follow because it was taped first but you get the idea. This had plenty of time to breathe, with heat on both Punk and then HOOK. Theoretically it was all leading to White and Sting because that was teased early in the match but it only got there with a chop block cheapshot by White, probably a combo of making sure to protect Sting before the PPV and teasing something for the future. That'd be a great interaction somewhere down the line. White is a guy who is just always on. He tries to make the most out of every second he's on the camera and he's constantly active. It makes for a good pairing with hyperactive guys like Juice and Austin Gunn. The most interesting things here were Punk interfacing with Swerve's offense (he didn't take the headscissors well but did take the rolling suplex fine; when they were just posturing it was great) and to a lesser degree White (including the Sting tease that they really milked) and then HOOK having to work from underneath, especially against Luchasaurus and Cage. In the end, the fact they didn't pay off Sting and White was fine. He had his big moment against Luchasaurus and Punk and Joe was the ultimate focus, with Punk getting to make up for the flimsy GTS last week with a pretty solid one on Cage, and then to use the Kokina Clutch to end it setting up the perfectly timed Joe (who was a total pro on commentary) run in. Fun stuff with big star moments, but maybe a little slight relative to other Collision main events.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 3/20 - 3/26

AEW Dynamite 3/22

Darby Allin/Sting/Orange Cassidy vs Kip Sabian/Butcher/Blade 

MD: There was a Dustin/Lee squash on Elevation on Monday but there's not much to say about it except for how fun Lee's nonchalant overhead throws were and Dustin having some fun with shifting his body around during the pinfall. He's about to be a granddad and if you follow him on social media, pretty nervous about it, so I'm glad they're keeping him busy.

Onto this then as there was a lot to like. I'm not sure I've mentioned this here, but to me, Cassidy and Moxley are two sides of the same coin. They're the ultimate grindstones that provide someone opportunity to really show their character. In wrestling, like any other form of fiction, character comes down to what you would do in any particular situation. What makes Wrestler A different from Wrestler B when faced with the same stimuli? With Moxley, he presses and presses and presses and you see what sort of wrestler exists under that sort of pressure. For Cassidy, it's endless frustration and aggravation. Moxley's "One Bad Day" involves car crashes and landmines going off around you and teeth piercing your flesh. Cassidy's "One Bad Day" is being stuck in line at a supermarket behind an old lady using coupons and a checkbook and dealing with that one asshole who's constantly changing lines even though you're in the middle of a traffic jam. Both of them will push you to a limit, but just what that looks like will be very different. 

Here, you could see him do it to Sabian early. I'm fortunate, I think, that I wasn't watching AEW a few years ago during the pandemic shows. The only Kip I know is after he took the mask off. As such, I think he brings a lot to the table, as he's very self aware. He tries to be a heel version of Cassidy in some ways, but as a heel, the act isn't nearly as genuine. It's hypocritical, a mask he puts on because he lacks the sort of easy confidence Cassidy lives and breathes on the inside. That's the character at least, and Kip plays it perfectly. He contrived a supervillain plan to throw Cassidy off his game to try to win the All Atlantic Title but even when it worked, it wasn't enough in the end because Kip will never be enough. There's value in that for a mid-card heel in a company that needs mid-card heels that can keep some heat in defeat. Anyway, that was a long way to go to say that I liked how the opening exchanged was summed up, with Sabian thinking he had the upper hand by escaping to the floor only to rush back in when Cassidy went to the pockets. 

And of course, Sabian got to then experience the thrill and the joy of not just one, or two, but three big moments with Sting. Speaking of confidence and awareness, Sting had big interactions with both Butcher, who beautifully missed his own splash, but Sabian, and he knew given the scope and the nature of the match, he didn't need a big dive here. What he needed instead was comedy and character, doing the Cassidy role to stymie Sabian, throwing the Cassidy kicks while Sabian was doing his down-up-arms fan interaction, and then finally just milking the Scorpion Death Drop forever. There were a few moments where things seemed just a bit off (I would have liked someone to break up the pin on Cassidy after Butcher and Blade Dragged the Lake on him, for instance) and this was a lesser match in the AEW Sting collection, but it was still a ton of fun and I'm happy for every heel team or trio that gets to interact with him, not just for the photo opportunity and adulation they likely feel, but because Sting puts so much effort and thought how to make the most of each and every match.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 3/13 - 3/19

ROH 3/16

Athena vs. Hyan

MD: There's a Kingston vs JVSK here, but the match was short, sweet, and exactly what it ought to have been to keep the build going for Kingston vs Claudio, so I don't have enough to say about it and no one needs me to write three paragraphs on Wooster and Jeeves and how VSK should be reading Wodehouse to figure out how to work more comedy of manners madcap antics into his matches. The big logical choice for the week is Jarrett vs Cassidy, but it's sort of self-evident and writes itself (Jarrett's mind games! Cassidy's punches! Crowd brawling through the commercial break! Do a blindfold tuexedo match next, Tony!). Therefore....

Let's talk more about Athena. She starts this with a bowing, over the top handshake, drawing a smile from Hyan, and then proceeds to hit the magic forearm and drop her. That forearm as an entry point is such an important part of Athena's matches. It sets the tone immediately and you go looking for it, but also there's the awareness that her opponent's looking for it too. While this wasn't a squash, it really shows why squashes are potentially important to a broader pro wrestling ecosystem (or dare I say "universe"). There are so many things that happen now in matches that are so distanced from their initial purpose. We had decades of dropdowns happening with no one ever getting tripped by them. I'm sure, as a kid, I had no idea what the purpose of a dropdown even was. It just felt like something done to get out of the way of a running opponent. There are a bunch of spots that are just apart of the lexicon of pro wrestling without unpacking the reason behind them (look at the old Waltman classic that starts in rocker dropper position and ends up with a flip). Point being, sometimes you actually need to hit the move instead of just having it countered in every match. Sometimes you want a mid-match move to look impactful enough that it ends a match. And in this case, you need Athena to hit that initial forearm half the time because then it actually means something when someone does duck it or reverse it or she has to work to sneak it in. You need to establish a baseline so that you can subvert expectations. In 2023, maybe that's a cooperative scenario where the crowd is just going to play along whereas in 1983, you were actually conditioning them, but maybe things have also been a certain way for so many years that laying these tracks might actually really, truly matter. Still, it's a hell of a forearm, right?

Hyan certain felt so as she spent the rest of the match selling it, disengaging after (shaky at best) kicks or pinfall attempts to rub at her chin. Athena, through coincidence or intent, stayed on it with a wrenching grapevine cravat and the crossface that she ultimately won with, so maybe it was all by design. Hyan had a couple of bursts of offense, but nothing seemed to be hitting hard. Moreover, Athena's worked in an incredible cutoff over the last few weeks, a Big Boss Man style choke drop off the ropes, just a perfect addition to her violent attitude, something that feels like a transgression and abuse that she can hit so suddenly in the midst of her opponent's offensive flurry. ROH has been a great show so far, two hours without any constraints (commercial breaks, quarter hour ratings to plan for, demos to aim at), a studio wrestling show, building to a PPV, but also very much great wrestling for the sake of great wrestling, and hey, if that means we get a couple more Athena matches a month, without limits and without restraint, I'm all for it. 

AEW House Rules 3/18

Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs. Butcher/Blade

MD: Look, I thought about not covering this because we're not supposed to see it and all, but we spend half of our time watching things we're not supposed to see between handheld footage and the entire 30 year output of pro wrestling in France. He may not like it, may not prefer it, but if anyone's going to understand it, it's a former tape trader. So there was a houseshow and someone went and fancammed it for us and you can probably find it on your own. And we thank that kind soul for his efforts. 

AEW is all about unique and interesting match ups. It's about things that a crowd knows they're going to see and no one else will get to see. You skip out on a house show and you never know what you're going to miss. That's the idea. Here, it's Cassidy and Darby teaming. They've been in some multi man matches before but had never teamed. Honestly, part of me just wants them to run with the idea you'll be seeing unique interactions and run house shows with the Deadly Draw/Lethal Lottery gimmick. This served more of a purpose though. Britt got to try out being a babyface in a low pressure environment. Anna got another match under her belt. Pillman, Jr. got to sit under Jarrett's learning tree. Hook was able to work from underneath against Ethan Page without worrying about keeping him perfectly protected. They dusted Pat Buck off for a unique crowd moment. 

And yeah, Cassidy and Darby got to team. It definitely hit the marks you'd want. Blade's an ideal Cassidy opponent since he's going to seethe at the antics. That's your shine, building to Darby doing running coffin splashes in the corner while Cassidy pinwheeled and got closer and closer. Darby just accepted it and leaned into it. Why not? And just as ideal was Butcher and Darby working together, where Butch was able to catch him off a spring back leap and takeover with massive power moves while Darby writhed and sold. The craziest bit here was when he just maneuvered him all over the place with a Texas Cloverleaf; unreal visuals. They made Darby work and work for the hot tag and then Cassidy brought it back down to tepid and they had a pretty active finishing stretch leading to a mousetrap finish. Post match, Butcher and Blade took some more licks and Darby celebrated with a kid which again, is one of those great moments people in that crowd would remember later and that kid will remember forever. There was a moment during the face-in-peril where Cassidy drew the ref away and was maybe just a little too animated for who he was (it let Blade use a chair), but otherwise, this was a pretty ideal house show tag.

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2022 Ongoing MOTY List: AEW 8 Man Tornado

16. The Hardys/Sting/Darby Allin vs. Private Party/The Butcher and the Blade AEW Dynamite 3/23

ER: Man this rocked. Jeff Hardy debuted the previous week in a big way against Private Party, and I love how he kept the chaos going. At the same time, this continued the improbably, amazing run of Sting, somehow putting in his greatest work of the century in his early 60s. Tony Schiavone has been so good on commentary during Sting matches, and I loved the brotherhood in his voice when Sting flew too too far with an early match plancha onto everyone. Tony is totally beside himself, talking about how he told Sting to "not do crazy things like that anymore", but laughing to himself at the same time. 

The action splits up and goes all over the arena, and really the only bad thing about the entire match is that we couldn't possibly see everything happening. Every pairing looked like it was worth seeing, at least based off what we were able to see. Everybody played into their role and did it well. Jeff had this crazy clothesline over the barricade (silly me thinking that would be the most reckless thing Jeff would attempt), Blade bumps all over for him, Darby falls down stairs and gets ragdolled by Butcher, and the action flowed really well from ring to ringside to crowd to backstage. 

Jeff did a crazy swanton off a concourse window ledge, never denying his yarder's heart. Teenage backyarders have that skateboarder mentality of looking for things to do a move off of, and here's a broken Jeff still looking for ledges that would be cool to stunt dive from. A majorly underrated part of the spot was Sting holding Butcher and the Blade onto the tables during Jeff's climb and then bailing out at the last possible moment. That kind of attention to detail is the perfect encapsulation of Sting's veteran knowledge and how the smallest things can make a match great. Matt Hardy looked awesome during the finishing stretch, like he and Private Party had been feuding for years. Private Party have come a long way in the past couple years, and they're getting so much better at feeding for offense and moving into position. I thought the finish was spectacular, as at this point I fully believe that Sting is as crazy as Terry Funk ever was and would be foolishly willing to take a frankensteiner into a cutter. Sting hopping off the middle buckle and blocking the cutter, dropping into a dragon sleeper and fighting up to his feet for the Scorpion Death Drop was such an awesome moment, timed expertly with a Twist of Fate. This is the most hyped I've ever been for Sting, a man still gaining new fans into his AARP membership. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/12 - 12/18

AEW Dark 12/13

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs Trustbusters (Slim J/JVSK)

MD: Sometimes AEW will tape something and then not show it due to changing circumstances. This was taped all the way back on 11/4 in Atlantic City, and Eddie, post Akiyama, has apparently cooled down. He was still pretty hot for this one. Still, they came through and showed it nonetheless and we're glad they did. Slim J vs Eddie Kingston is about as much of a Segunda Caida match as is possible. If Punk doesn't come back, then Slim J becomes the fifth finger sort of by default. This got a ton of time too and was a good showcase for everyone involved.

Eddie and Slim J got really stretch to start with Slim just absolutely driving Eddie nuts and goading him into things. Eddie came back by responding to some more goading with a perfect eyepoke. Later on the Trustbusters would get to really lean on Ortiz, looking pretty good working as a unit for a team that has maybe one or two Dark matches together. Slim J has been around forever but he's traveled in different circles than a lot of the other AEW guys. I think Davari said that he'd first met him the day that they started as a unit. And I don't see any signs of VSK working him before either (even though VSK has been around for fifteen years). This broke down to some pretty wonderful chaos with Eddie suplexing everyone, taking Slim J's flying reverse DDT perfectly (which not everyone does), and less perfectly eating another dive. They had Eddie break up a couple of lesser things by VSK but made Ortiz kick out of the Amityville Horror/Cradleshock, which I think is JVSK's finisher, so that was a dubious choice but it fit the moment of the match, I guess. I liked the little bit of Sonny Kiss we got as a second in this one, including to set up the finishing miscommunication. Trustbusters are just such a weird and random unit but it somehow works. Excalibur was trying one last ticket sale read as Ortiz made the final hot tag and Eddie spun into the backfist and he carried that manic energy forward into the call. If this is the only Eddie and Slim J encounter we get in AEW, it'd be a shame, but it still felt pretty substantial for a month and a half old Dark main event and I'm glad we got at least this much.

AEW Rampage 12/16

Dustin Rhodes/Orange Cassidy/Chuck Taylor/Trent vs Kip Sabian/Trent Seven/Butcher/Blade

MD: Feel good way to end a yearly themed AEW taping, especially important considering the big hometown babyface lost to end Dynamite. Lots of moving pieces here but they came together pretty well, with everyone more or less where they should be when they should be and plenty of gaga. I enjoyed the Trent-off to start and the fans got into it. Seven is a guy with a couple of unique ideas, a slightly different body type. I think there's probably more value to AEW overall to bring guys like him in occasionally instead of full time, that sense that anything can happen at any moment as opposed to just making a huge roster even huger, but he was more than happy to play along with everything here. Probably my favorite moment in this one was when he was taking Dustin's punches by really throwing his head all over the place. Sabian is someone I give some credit to, as while I don't entirely think the act works, I like how broadly he thinks about things; there was a moment during Dark a week or two ago where he was mocking Alex Reynolds about the Preston Vance turn that is something almost no one else on the roster would have done in that spot. Sort of a galaxy brain approach to his matches.

I get that WWE is better in many ways than it was at the start of the year, but it's always refreshing to highlight someone like Dustin in Texas. It's so intuitive and so special. It's part of what WWF was doing for years at the start of the war in the 80s, bringing in people like Wrestling II in Louisiana or Mad Dog Vachon in AWA territory. All of Dustin's interactions with Danhausen (constantly staring at one another) or Cassidy (playing air guitar to the theme as Cassidy leaned upon him on the entrance) were enjoyable and the sort of things I'd hope would lead to something more. I feel it's off brand to note on Segunda Caida that I would have liked a hug with everyone involved, but I kind of would have. The bits with Danhausen and the faux low blows (and the one actual one) set up the finishing stretch in a fun and different way than a dive train would have. They could run a match like this once every few weeks or once a month, highlighting a local guy, pulling together some characters and some feuds, to send a crowd happy, and it'd be part of what will always make AEW special compared to a lot of what we've been forcefed over the last two decades. I still hope this is leading to Dustin challenging Cassidy for the All Atlantic Title at some point though. I'd even take Dustin and Danhausen interacting more.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/5 - 12/11

AEW Dynamite 12/7

Dynamite Diamond Battle Royal

MD: Dustin is healthy again and was in this one. He's saying he'll retire in 2023, so we're going to cover every bit of his work as we can between now and then, if that actually happens (wrestlers are wrestlers and he's more of a wrestler than most). He does seem to be featured a bit right now and may even get an All Atlantic Title match, maybe? Hopefully? Dustin vs Cassidy would be a new match-up and I think they could do pretty interesting things with it for a one-off. We'll see.

This was, of course, an AEW Battle Royal which means some fun, pointed moments, and a lot of fun moments that just seem to happen. There's a lot to cover even if this wasn't the most eventful AEW Battle Royal I've seen. First, look at all of those managers and seconds! Stokely and Big Billy, The Blade and the Bunny, Penelope Ford, The Boys, Nana! And that's even with Sterling, Vickie, Jake, Arn, and a few others not there. Managers are a great, integral part of wrestling, and AEW is great for using them so thoroughly even if the contract stuff can be a bit much at times. Speaking of contract stuff, one of the biggest actual storybeats here was Matt Hardy, made by Ethan Page and Lee Moriarty to do their bidding and work as a pretty effective unit. Page lost the forest for the trees, of course, and enjoyed rubbing it in so much that he let himself get distracted, but while it was happening, there were fun bits like Matt jousting with both faces and heels, him leaving Moriarty high and dry for a high five, and Page cheering him on against the Butcher (while not helping) leading to a Hardy chant. Butcher was more of a monster in this than Cage, which says a lot about both of them. I loved Blade jumping up to the apron to celebrate with Butcher after he eliminated Dustin. Dustin got his big moment against kip with a picture perfect Destroyer, which was Kip's comeuppance for screwing with Cassidy. Kip had a nice little beat where Cassidy blocked a slam into the corner and he turned to look at him in a moment of exasperation or shock before Cassidy hammered him in. Speaking of Cassidy, one of my favorite little things in all of this was when Jungle Boy came out and Cassidy did his little version of the arm waving to great him before giving him a handshake as Dean saluted them both. It's little things like that which make the promotion feel more alive and active and more than just the sum of matches, promos and angles. Starks, to his credit, was able to take out Butcher (and like I said, Butcher being such a beast in this made that mean all the more), but they could have focused him a little more even than that. Same with Jungle Boy, who had just sort of been in it before he got bodied by Big Bill with the boot and the crazy chokeslam. What mattered in the end was that Starks won though, which laid the groundwork for the promos that would follow. Not the best AEW Battle Royal ever, and the tenor of the eliminations was a bit affected by the commercial break, but even a just ok one is always full of all of those great little moments that makes the tapestry all the more vivid.

Darby Allin vs Samoa Joe

MD: This was a hell of a thing. It's know how much of this was Darby being Darby and how much of it was Joe finding his groove after a time of inactivity, in the latter stages of his career, but if pressed (and I'm pressed every week around here; that's the point), I'd say it was about 50/50. Just a monster base against an insane bumper; not a flyer so much as just a lawn dart who throws himself into everything he does. Joe gave right at the get go, pushing Darby back but eating a dropkick out but then he did his trademark walk away and it was on from there. Joe just absolutely dismantled Darby on the outside, brutal stuff. He leaned on him during the commercial break, and then cut off the comeback attempt by setting up the amazing spinning bump off the post. All throughout, Joe emanated sadistic glee, grinning, scoffing, flexing to mock Darby after that bump, tossing Darby's in and back out of the ring to break the count, just a living, breathing monolithic monster that lives in the same world as you and I. Of course, Darby's exudes resilience like no other and he somehow was able to mount a believable comeback with Joe taking just enough of his stuff to really wow you and make you think that Darby might pull it out. It was all for naught with the great chokeout finish, one of those things that probably aren't as impressive as, let's say Joe catching Darby in a fireman's carry off a plancha like earlier in the match, but that looked great nonetheless. Post match, they go with one of those moments where you can't see the strings and have no idea how they pull it off without severe spinal damage as Joe dropped Darby right on the skateboard wheels. Don't try this at home, I guess? You wonder if they should have been trying it in the arena, but it sure had an effect. The crowd was great throughout, oohing and ahhing every bit of offense, and every bit of it was deserved. Even if this Joe run gives us nothing else, it sure as heck gave us this.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/2 - 5/8

AEW Dynamite 5/4

Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Wheeler Yuta) vs. Andrade Family Office (Angelico/Butcher/Blade)

MD: This is the first of these trios matches where I came off a little underwhelmed. It needed another minute or two, maybe. Angelico got to do one tricked out submission on Danielson and Danielson responded by kicking the soul out of him in the corner, but it wasn't the 90 second exchange on the mat that we've been itching for since Danielson came into the company. That said, as a cliff notes version of the sort of match you'd want, everyone still got to highlight what makes them special, it's just that no one got to do a whole lot of it. Moxley got to toss Blade around the ringside area, and Blade got to get tossed around; Butcher got to be a brick wall against Yuta, and Yuta got to scrap against everyone and then fight from underneath, and the fans plenty happy to chant for him. This was by far the best use of Yuta's "through the legs" theatrics, and that means something. It shouldn't be in every match and he can do it as part of a feeling out opening exchange, but it's way more effective when used to build to a hot tag. A guy like Butcher is the perfect guy to use it against. Hopefully we get that ten minute Dark match between Angelico and Danielson at some point, that's the pairing everyone wants to see.

ER: I really loved the enthusiasm everyone worked this with, but I also thought that Angelico was the worst part about it. At one point I swear he threw a legsweep at Moxley that swept 5 feet in front of Mox's feet. Moxley still hopped in reaction, and it kind of made the follow up make more sense. But I don't care about Angelico, I care about how good The Blade looked here, because I thought The Blade looked great. I've always liked the Butcher and the Blade team even though I don't view them as a team that has great matches, but Blade gets better as a worker the more he just works like LA Knight. Watch the two of them: the movement is near identical, and the way they feed opponents is identical. Blade has really good timing when it comes to feeds, and I'll always love a worker who tags into a match and then runs immediately into a backdrop. I think Blade is always really good in matches with a lot of guys, as he seems to always be among the best at knowing exactly where to be when everything starts to break down. Also, Blade has Actually Great punches now. He throws a lot of long right hands in this match and I was really impressed by how they connected. I've said before that AEW isn't really a fed with a lot of punchers, and now I have to talk about how The Blade is one of the best punchers in AEW. Love to see it. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 3/21-3/27

AEW Dynamite 3/23

CM Punk vs. Dax Harwood

MD: This was a bit of a tricky match, just for where it was positioned. This was Punk's first time back in a few weeks. He had been feuding with the Pinnacle over all including a big beatdown and the Moxley tag against the Revival so there was logical lingering heat here. Revival is in the midst of a babyface turn (presumably capitalizing on attention from the podcasts with Renee but who knows what the actual plan was). I'd say Dax wrestled this more as a de facto heel than a fully committed one, being in the position to cut Punk off and occasionally using a hairpull to escape a killer hold, aggressive but only so overtly underhanded. Even when Cash came out, it was to slap the mat and keep the fans in it. As usual with Punk matches, I loved the selling and the attention to detail, and more over, how much things were milked for value. Look at the spots in the corner that ended with the big superplex. They went around three or four times before getting there, building up the tension and the importance and then paying it off with a huge impact. Another match on the card might have done three or four moves in that period instead of building and building. Likewise, the bump to the floor off of the inside-out suplex. This was more of a Bret Hart tribute match than a Davey Richards one and both guys were laid out for a while after that, which is where Cash came out to keep the crowd in it and further that babyface turn. If wrestlers who the fans care about decide to place more value on a bump like that or on moments like that, it's something that can transfer across matches on the card and give every AEW wrestler more meaningful tools to play upon. If you can do more with less, that means that the times that you actually do more, it matters even more. Theoretically at least. It's a way of taking back a superplex or a bump to the floor for everyone and it's hugely appreciated. I hope it's capitalized on because it'll make everything in AEW better. 

ER: Phil did some of his best work writing up this match for The Ringer, and I think he's the only one approaching the best takeaway from this match. I saw a lot of talk online about the Bret influence on the match, and I didn't prioritize the match due to my own lack of interest in seeing more tribute spots to a wrestler that I love, who still has a long list of matches that I've never seen. I love Punk, but seeing people talk about spots lifted from Bret matches just makes me want to go watch several Bret matches instead. This match was not about lifting sequences from old Bret matches, it was more about the Bret influence on modern wrestling, and how you can still show your influences on your sleeve without being derivative. All of the comparisons to Bret Hart classics do matches like this a disservice. These two connect in different ways, and have different strengths, but I guess it's always more interesting compare good wrestlers to another good wrestler, than to note broadly that "these two are influenced by good wrestling matches". This was a simply constructed match that hinted at moves early and paid them off later, and some moves hit early that lead to different results later. 

There are a couple of really big moments that happened at smart parts of the match, with a big superplex as the centerpiece. I really liked every around that moment, with Punk going up top and showboating a bit with some extended Macho Man arms and then immediately realized how he fucked up when Dax swept his legs. The superplex was really good, Dax pushing hard off the top rope with his legs, and I also like how they handled the vertical suplex reversal not long after, ending with both tumbling over the top and ricocheting off the apron. All of the Sharpshooter work was great, although I wish they had done a bit more with Dax getting kicked off and hitting his head on the bottom turnbuckle. Coming not long after a superplex, another shot to the back of the head could have taken things in a more interesting direction. That said, I do like how Dax sold the kick off and how he staggered into a very close nearfall right after. When he finally gets the Sharpshooter locked on, Harwood can proudly state that in a world where almost every person who attempts it has the worst Sharpshooter ever, his is much closer to Bret or Choshu than the rest. I would have bought that Sharpshooter as the finish, but I loved the quickness and the slyness of Punk's Anaconda Vise. There was a cold methodical killer aspect to it, but also a touch of desperation. If not desperation, than still the work of a man who knew that NOW was the time to end things if possible. 

Darby Allin/Sting/Hardy Brothers vs. The Butcher and The Blade/Private Party 

MD: Too much action for the camera to follow here. Once they split into two zones, it got a little bit easier but we missed things on both counts: how Blade got opened up, a lot of the one-on-one between Kassidy and Matt. Everyone got moments either in hitting things or taking things. Darby and Sting had those opening dives. Butcher got to pinball Darby around and send him down the stairs. In general, a match like this protects Matt and he gave Kassidy some comeuppance before getting ambushed by Quen and ultimately eating the double side effect. Jeff being more concerned about hitting his crazy swanton in a 3 on 2 scenario than saving his brother follows him dancing to his music instead of making the save the other day pretty well. The finish could have gone a little better but it was easy to cover as Sting fighting for the reverse headlock and the timing still worked out. You can tell that there's nothing Kassidy would rather do in wrestling than feed for Sting. Really, this is the sort of thing that they could have run twenty years ago as a dark match main event every week for months after TV show to send the fans home happy.

ER: Man this rocked. This was the AEW debut of Jeff Hardy and I love how he debuted in this chaos. This also continues the amazing run of Sting, somehow putting in his greatest work of the century in his early 60s. Tony Schiavone has been so good on commentary during Sting matches, and I love the brotherhood in his voice when Sting flies super far with an early match plancha onto everyone. Tony is totally beside himself, talking about how he told Sting to not do crazy things like that anymore, but laughing to himself at the same time. The action splits up and goes all over the arena, and really the only bad thing about the match is we couldn't possibly see everything. Every pairing looked like it was worth seeing, at least based off what we were able to see. Everybody played into their role and did it well. Jeff had this crazy clothesline over the barricade (silly me thinking that would be the most reckless thing Jeff would do in his debut), Blade bumps all over for him, Darby falls down stairs and gets ragdolled by Butcher, and I love how the action flowed. 

Jeff Hardy did a crazy swanton off a concourse window ledge, and I love that he still has a yarder's heart. Teenage backyarders have that skateboarder mentality of looking for things to do a move off of, and here's a broken Jeff still looking for ledges that would be cool to stunt dive from. I also loved Sting holding Butcher and the Blade onto the tables during Jeff's climb and then bailing out at the last possible moment. Matt Hardy looked awesome during the finishing stretch, like he and Private Party had been feuding for years. Private Party have come a long way in the past couple years, and they're getting so much better at feeding for offense and positioning. I thought the finish was spectacular, as at this point I fully believe that Sting is as crazy as Terry Funk ever was and would be foolishly willing to take a frankensteiner into a cutter. Sting hopping off the middle buckle and blocking the cutter, dropping into a dragon sleeper and fighting up to his feet for the Scorpion Death Drop was such an awesome moment, timed expertly with a Twist of Fate. This is the most hyped I've ever been for Sting, a man still gaining new fans into his AARP membership days. 

Blackpool Combat Club (Brian Danielson/Jon Moxley) vs. Varsity Blonds

MD: This worked as contrast to Danielson's matches over the last month or two at least. It made me better appreciate what Yuta brought last week. Danielson and Moxley are going to make you more violent, more aggressive, work for it harder no matter who you are, but there was a lower floor to start from here. Griff had his moments, including some driving forearms at the end. There's a lot of upside there potentially, but I don't know if we'll see it with Mox and Dragon as there's a lot of lower hanging fruit elsewhere in the company. Pillman, on the other hand, probably needs a different presentation or a different role to see if something might click. That doesn't mean things weren't smooth at times, like how he leapt right into Mox's double-arm DDT, but smooth wasn't necessarily what I was looking for here. On the other hand, every week Ambrose and Danielson start to add more unified offense and bits of timing to their repertoire. Here it was the set up for Danielson's knee off the top and the way they synced up their finishers. It's hard not to be excited for whatever's next.

AEW Rampage 3/25 (taped 3/23)

Dustin Rhodes vs. Lance Archer

MD: Archer is a guy who I like a lot in 3-minute Dark and Elevation squashes but that I'm iffier about in the actual payoff matches against name talent. This played to his strengths though. Dustin went after Lambert early and got a shot to his ear for his trouble and Archer zoned in on the damage. This was low on spots (which isn't to say that Archer didn't hit some of his big offense down the stretch or that Dustin didn't take a crazy flip bump to nowhere off the apron, but it was more about shots to the ear and grinding Dustin down, with Dustin working the crowd hard on his comebacks. Even the powerslam got jammed by Archer. When he's in the right environment, Archer's instincts are quite good. I like how he works the crowd. I like how he teases them. He's constantly present when he gets a chance to be. He didn't get to scare any kids this time around, which is one of the best parts of his act but you work with the crowd you're given. This was very much the right match for him and Dustin, ear bleeding all over the place, fit into it perfectly. When a guy's ear is bleeding enough that it gets all over your chest, that's something to lean into, and they absolutely did here to the betterment of the match.

PAS: The ear bleed here was cool, but I didn't think this worked particularly well. I kept wanting it to be better so that I could justify writing about Dustin on The Ringer. Archer always feels like a guy pulling his shots, and this is the second violent Dustin match I thought underwhelmed. For some reason they just seemed on different pages. Nick Comoroto hasn't been around nearly as long or had the heights that Archer has had in wrestling, but I though he matched up way better with Dustin in a similar type match. Finish was clearly setting up a third match so maybe they can deliver something special there. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 3/14-3/20

AEW Dynamite 3/16

Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley vs. Best Friends (Chuck Taylor/Wheeler Yuta)

MD: I saw some criticism that this was a little bit long and maybe there was a little bit of that; maybe just a bit too much wrestling for the sake of wrestling, and a general house style sense of how long an AEW TV match has to be, or a technical need to encapsulate the commercial break. But when you look at what this match was trying to do, you can't say they didn't nail it. This was about Danielson and Moxley completely dismantling their opponents with Regal commentating over them, about Taylor looking resilient despite the fact that both Cassidy and Trent were down with injuries, and to get Yuta over. That meant Danielson and Moxley took 90% of this, including a double heat. It meant that while Taylor was able to have a moment after a hot tag, it was Yuta who got that last hot tag and got to look strong against guys way above his paygrade. We talk about how Kingston is the guy who understand the emotional weight behind the old AJPW style, but this nailed how hierarchy could be used to get someone over. Yuta's defiance at the end when Danielson was kicking him and how the crowd started to chant his name felt like when a lion would step up to Tenryu only to get crushed for his affrontry. Speaking of those kicks, I kind of loved how Yuta took them, throwing his hand back in order to steady himself. It gave him a place to go as he started to lean into them more and more before finally drawing Danielson in. So far in this arrangement, I wondered about exactly how well Moxley fit, as he had come back as a huge babyface with a meaningful story, but you're seeing him revel in the violence more and more every week. You really were able to see that here as they cut off the ring and just bore down upon Taylor and Yuta. 

ER: I am not a Chuck Taylor guy, and I am not a Yuta guy. The latter encompasses a lot of the things I hate about modern wrestling house style, the style where every guy with a year under their belt gets the same "this guy is going to be the best in the world in just a couple years" hype and all I can see is someone who can't set up offense and whose bumps almost always look disconnected from the moves they're bumping for. And I liked how Danielson acted exactly as he should, the old head scoffing at the new hype, and then punishing him for it. I thought Yuta and especially Taylor looked pretty bad in this, but Taylor kind of has an excuse to look bad because, well, people know he wrestles like Chuck Taylor. So I reveled in the extended aggressive beating that Danielson and Moxley dished out to Yuta, while Regal's honeyed tones described the savagery. Regal was as much of an MVP in this match as Danielson, fleshing out the story of the match being told, and Danielson had another one of those runs where I instinctively want to write that it was "one of the best performances of the year for Danielson" despite knowing that I've written that probably a dozen times already. Yuta gets full credit for standing up to a beating that wasn't going to stop, and I really liked Matt's comparison to the AJPW hierarchy, and found it apt. Those fans knew when young KENTA was landing more kicks than normal on a main eventer, just as they knew when Misawa was suddenly getting deeper into matches against Jumbo. Yuta's got a long way to go before that, but he knew exactly what role he was playing in this tag, and that's more important than a moveset. 

 

AEW Rampage 3/18 (Taped 3/16)

Darby Allin vs. The Butcher

MD: Phil covered this one on the Ringer and his review is more poetic. Go read it. Here's mine: Great chemistry here. So much of what made this work was Darby's confidence in how over he was and in his own offense. He knows the fans are behind him not because he dominates matches but because he never quits, because he takes a beating, because he can come back at any moment believably, because he wields his own body like a weapon like maybe no other wrestler in history, and because he layers upon that speed and explosiveness and technical savvy. It means he can give the Butcher most of a match, can lean into his ever shot, can take offense that's visually dramatic like the cloverleaf powerbomb and the swings, both within the ring and into the steps, and come back at the last second and have it all work. Moreover, the advantage of having someone so dependent on risks or very specific openings (like manipulating the fingers) in order to stay in control is that it creates narrative possibilities. Darby has to throw his body at Butcher. That leaves him open for Butcher to catch him. It's as simple as that. Disparities, if capitalized on correctly, create drama. Butcher was great here as a looming, crashing, clashing, violence presence. The announcers played up that he'd been injured against Darby previous and was taking a pound of flesh in revenge. Whether that was what was going on in Butcher's head or not, you could read that into his ringwork and it gave Darby a very tall mountain to climb.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/25/20

What Worked

-I liked most of Hangman vs. Silver, good way to start off the show. Silver is a fun guy to feature, a compact power pack who was really good at cutting off Page. One of my least favorite things in Page matches is how unnecessarily complicated some of his offense is, and how it is never reversed. I liked how Silver cut off a lot of signature offense, like hitting a rana to counter the rope flip lariat. It made Page approach things differently and made for a more satisfying story. Silver has a low center of gravity and can use it in cool ways, like dropping low to the ground to do a quick go behind and snap German suplex. I wish Page had treated Silver's kicks a little more seriously, as it felt like we were building to something really cool when Silver was kicking away at Page, not letting him up, dodging right when he needed to, landing a big hooking kick to the jaw, but Page kinda just stood up and beat him anyway. Also, Silver doesn't need to do the half gainer flip bump every time he takes a clothesline. He did it three times here and you really don't need to be doing the same signature bump three times in three minutes. However, he also planted Page with a brainbuster and took a nice high backdrop bump, and there was more than enough here to make it work. 

-When Lee Johnson makes it onto Dynamite, you know you're getting a nice squad match, because he always takes the best beatings in squash matches. I need to seek out some of his Dark matches to see how he does with actual offense, because I like the way he bumps for lariats and other big offense. He doesn't take intentionally athletic feather soft bumps, his bumps look like he is being hurt. He made that lariat on the floor look brutal, and I don't think Will Hobbs has a very brutal lariat. 

-I do like that AEW is the kind of fed that makes mention about how cool it is that Jericho and Chris Daniels are meeting for the very first time. That's always cool to me when two guys who have been in wrestling for so long finally cross paths in the ring, like Buddy Rose facing Kerry von Erich in WWF. And let me tell you, if this was the year 1999 or 2000, I could not tell you just how over the moon excited I would be to see a Jericho/Daniels match. But this 2020 version is probably about as good as could reasonably expected. Jake Hager was my favorite guy here, and Hager might be THEE guy that I am absolutely never excited to see on my TV screen who can actually deliver something cool. He always gets an "oh sheesh this guy?" reaction from me, but I can't deny how much I enjoy Hager's meathead mouth breathing style. The best part of this was when Hager was driving his knee right into Danielses' back while throwing fists right into the ribs. It looked nasty as hell. 

-The gear AND choreography of the Omega Sweepers has improved every week. It's really satisfying to watch performers get better at their craft in real time. Moxley beatdown was strong. I want Moxley to wreck this guy. 

-Shida/Anna Jay was better than I expected, mainly because Jay doesn't even have 20 career matches work. Obviously there are going to be some glitches, so I'm more impressed with the things she can pull off naturally. She is really strong at making up the difference when selling strikes, like when Shida threw a dropkick that landed a little low and Jay sold her jaw convincingly. She goes to the jaw/mouth sell a bit much, did it right before that dropkick when missing a charge into the buckles, but it's a strong looking sell so hats off. I liked a lot of the ways she would counter Shida offense, like blocking the running apron knee with a downward strike, and especially her shifting weight at the last minute to land on Shida after a vertical suplex. I thought it was just a bad looking suplex at first, but I love a reversal that actually makes it look like the move wasn't pulled off quite right. Reversals in 2020 wrestling are so clean that they usually don't look like they're reversing anything. This looked like Shida tried to do a suplex and wasn't expecting Jay's weight shift. The nearfall kickout by Shida was perfectly timed, actually got me to buy into Jay sneaking away with the upset. 

-Fenix running into Blade's awesome powerslam, that works.

What Didn't Work

-Taz dropping silly shooty comments like "creative has nothing for me" or "wish me luck in my future endeavors" does nothing for me. Taz does not come off threatening to me at this point, and there are too many guys on the roster who could have locked in a better looking submission. Cody's burn about Taz's son (Hook!) training with Cody and not Taz was strong. 

-I feel bad for all the people who have strongly backed Rusev and have been gifted Miro. 

-I love Jack Evans and would rather see him on Dynamite than any number of other less interesting flippers that have been featured. But it's also really weird to give Top Flight a big Dynamite match last week ago, a match that got them buzz and made a big impression, to then bring Evans and Angelico back to Dynamite just to beat Top Flight. I don't think the match worked as a match, as all of these AEW flyer vs. flyer matches feel so same-y. I don't think Top Flight does much of anything that comes off natural, can't adjust on the fly; They can either do long semi-complicated sequences that end with something dumb like kicking Angelico in the arm, or they do weird things like adjust their several feet while rope running. It all comes off like guys just running through some spots that don't always feel like they belong to the same match. I did like the way Angelico went after Daunte's leg, thought his roll throughs to trap Daunte in leg locks and holds looked super cool and felt like old IWRG bleeding into AEW. Also, it is supremely annoying to give these guys names like Darius and Daunte, because there is no way I'm going to remember which one is fucking Daunte and which is Darius. Air Wolf I can remember, but Darius Martin? 

-I didn't think Fenix and PAC looked good as a team. They're two guys who, from their styles, seem like they would complement each other nicely, but their set ups felt long and things missed the mark. But I thought Butcher and the Blade looked good as heel opposition, thought Butcher looked great as a fist swinging bully, thought Blade worked some nice sequences with Fenix and especially loved Fenix aborting a flying attack off the top, jumping past Blade, and running hard into a great snap powerslam. But the match overall felt scattered and like it would have been a real mess without Butcher and Blade. 

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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 10/21/20

 What Worked

-Wardlow/Jungle Boy was a decent enough muscle head vs. flyer match, maybe a 0.3 on the 2002 Brock scale. Wardlow is missing something with his offense that I can't quite put my finger on. He's a bit too polished, so doesn't have the joyful carelessness of a jacked up Power Plant guy, and he's missing aggression. Walking around and breathing heavily after hitting F5 variations doesn't quite do it for me. So this match hinged on Jungle Boy's comeback sequence, and that I liked. His forearms hit at least as hard as Wardlow (which really says more about Wardlow than JB), but the dropkick to the back looked good and the tope to the back looked even better. That tope is probably what got this up top. 

-With more practice, Kenny Omega's dancers could be almost as good as the fine Minnesotan dancers of Let's Bowl. 

-I could not be happier that AEW seems to have realized how fantastic Eddie Kington's weekly TV presence is and let him just scream into several microphones. The guy is great and you can tell anyone seeing or hearing him for the first time thinks he comes off like a major star. I am so excited at just the sheer potential of what they can do and how far they can do it with him. If you didn't watch Fenix/Pentagon and only listened to Kingston on commentary, you'd think it was an actual great match. 

-I watched a lot of bad dance routines masquerading as wrestling in the first 80 minutes of this episode, so I appreciated that Jericho and MJF at least did a bad dance routine masquerading as a bad dance routine. They obviously didn't have the chops of Bing Crosby/Donald O'Connor, but they knew the proper way to look into the camera while delivering a song's punchline and that goes a long way. The porterhouse ordering open felt far too similar to the Key & Peele Soul Food sketch for me to give it much credit, but I actually loved the bookended payoff of Jericho saying "we're going to have to send these back" after bluffing themselves into ordering rarer and rarer steaks. 

-Britt Baker's match lost the thread a little bit at times (a kick that was supposed to be caught wasn't, Britt's sling blade does not look great), but was more competitive than I was expecting and didn't overextend itself. KiLynn King bumped big for Britt's offense and got her face punched nicely into the mat on a curb stomp. A lot of AEW squash matches give their opponent way too much, or do something similar to Omega/Kiss where it's over in two moves. The finish of this was never in doubt but I liked the few openings that King got, and liked what she did with them. 

What Didn't Work

-Kenny Omega is an indisputable dweeb. Can't decide if commissioning someone to say "Broke the Meltzer 5 star scale" is worse than those Kurt Angle promos where he would talk about putting on a match of the year. 

-Thank god Eddie Kingston was on commentary during Fenix/Pentagon, because he was the only thing that could have made that pile worthwhile. You'd think Pentagon would be a little more inspired working opposite his flashier, more entertaining brother, but you would be wrong! I'm not certain I saw a single Pentagon kick that didn't show light, and the entire match was a full reset after every single move and kickout. The opening "I know my opponent" dance party looked lazy, like two people looking ahead to dance step 3 before they had completed step 2, so you had things like those garbage pinball attempts where the person pinning is already rolling themselves off before the person being pinned has even moved. Midway through Fenix appeared to brain himself doing a reverse rana off the top, just crunching straight down on his neck and head. It looked really really bad so things naturally got more disjointed after as it appeared they were stalling for time. Pentagon did a derpy rolling DDT that either shouldn't have been attempted or should have only been attempted if his brother could move, and so instead just looked like three separate blown spots. The home stretch was trash, just Fenix doing a big move for a nearfall, then rest, then both standing up, then Pentagon doing a big move for a nearfall. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, no consequences, no transitions, no interest whatsoever. Fenix hit a great tornillo, Kingston saved what he could. 

-I was not buying the "gritty fight feel" of Cabana/Page. This whole thing just felt all over the map. Both guys had moments of standing up from a strike with gritted teeth, you know, real cowboy shit, and a few seconds later Page would be hitting a standing shooting star or Cabana would be hitting a headscissors. They wanted to have a juniors match, then they'd want to have a war, then they'd want to do some nearfall kickouts, it all felt like pieces were pulled from different matches. The beginning had some "fast exchanges" that weren't fast, leading commentary to cover by calling Cabana "deceptionably" fast, which is not a word just as Cabana is not deceptively fast. I liked Page catching Cabana's stupid slow crawl through the legs spot and turning it into a pin, and Page's back bump to the apron was nuts (and completely wasted and unnecessary in a match like this, but I did like Cabana's follow up splash off the apron). Page's match finishing lariat looked like a finish, but man the flip portion of it is never going to be not dumb. 

-Tag scramble had some moments but was overall a big ol' mess. I am not sure if Marq Quen is a constant victim of bad catching or if he's just a man who is very good at diving one foot to the side of his opponent. I'm not sure if he's been doing super high tope con hilos onto concrete intentionally, or if I've been reading the move wrong and it's actually a flipping clothesline and I've just incorrectly been focusing on the future arthritis gifting flat back bumps on the floor. His shooting star press that always falls a foot and a half short falls a foot and a half short a bit later, so that might contain the answer. Things got really uncomfortable when Isiah Kassidy hits a guillotine legdrop that almost disconnects Alex Reynolds' head from his body. You can see his jaw snap over and his body goes stiff. Blade figures this out when he picks up his arm and realizes he's dragging a dead body. He drags Reynolds corpse into the corner and - a real pro - uses Reynolds' hand to tag in. But it looked like  nobody else in the ring knew Reynolds was out cold. He was motionless towards the corner with his legs crossed, people crashing into him on landings. Reynolds is a total nutbar, so the second he barely comes to he immediately goes into a sequence with Nick Jackson, which was really insane because the guy looked like he had no idea where he was. It was weird watching him move by pure in ring muscle memory and still manage to be a part of a three person sequence. You can't grade his execution but he hit his marks and that impressed the hell out of me. It was clear that he wouldn't have even been able to tie his shoes in his condition, and here he was taking a high knee in the corner and a bulldog. Silver and Reynolds were the saving grace here, and Butcher/Blade had some nice moments (I do like that suplex into knees), but the match got uncomfortable when nobody in ring or on commentary was acknowledging Reynolds was a dead body. Bad night for that to happen, after Fenix's near broken neck. 

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