AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/7 - 7/13

AEW All In 7/12/25

Dustin Rhodes vs Sammy Guevara vs Kyle Fletcher vs Daniel Garcia

MD: Look, at the end of the day, we don't know what we don't know. I'd love to get into the booking here. I'd love to try to make sense of this situation and I will to a degree, but there's a lot we don't know, some of which may become more apparent over the next few weeks as they decide what to do next with the TNT title. Here's what we do know.

Adam Cole is beloved...

Not a hard one here. He comes off like the nicest guy in the world. His peers drop the masks (sometimes literal) and speak incredibly highly of him. I have my opinions of how that has and hasn't connected into his ringwork and if you're reading this, you probably know what they are, but even those have never come from a point of wanting anything other than for the guy to succeed. He's been through some really tough injuries and made a couple of valiant comebacks and I hope he gets to come back and prove me wrong about my criticisms. Nothing would make me happier. 

When the news was first announced, I noted that I wanted them to just do a forfeit; yes, even on a stadium show, because that would have gotten so, so much heat for Fletcher and because enough babyfaces were probably winning at the top of the card (I had thought Omega might be going over Okada at that point but half figured Mercedes was going to beat Toni so it was a wash). I get the sense TK really doesn't ever want to underdeliver on something he promoted but sometimes there's more longterm value in trying to get the heat on the heel and not the booker (and Callis is better than that at most) and it would have set up a Fletcher reign perfectly. You still could have done the Cole theme (which is what the fans wanted the most here) and the speech. Which leads to this:

It was Fletcher's moment...

It's no big surprise that I'm incredibly high on Fletcher. You always saw little sparks during commercial breaks but at some point he went from being Ospreay's young boy clone to the most surprising heel in wrestling. For me, it was right at the start of the C2 and the Benjamin match where he rode the wave of the crowd and helped get Shelton over as a mega-face on that night. You can go back to the Komander match that slightly preceded it though. 

Regardless, he's showing amazing instincts in getting underneath the crowd's skin, in taking his time, in living in the moment, and in adapting on the fly. If wrestling is a form of interactive theater, and if we've gotten into a world with far too many pre-planned spots, sequences, and counters, he's the panacea to that illness, the future of pro wrestling, because he is so able to (whether he knows it or not) pull from the heatseeking tradition of the past.

If the TNT title is a de facto TV title, with open challenges and defended on TV, he's perfect to run out the time limit and survive by the skin of his teeth week after week. No one thought Cole was winning. This was one of the only singles matches on the whole show that wasn't a main event and it was because it was Fletcher's time, his mid-card title coronation. 

But when you make a substitution, you put a babyface over.

Is that a Paul Boesch rule? I think it might be. Regardless, it's generally a pretty good one. It's an even better one in a world where you didn't want to burn a town. From what I hear, the biggest problem with All In for those there was the length of the show (lengthened to assault SNME in retribution or not) and maybe that's something to tackle somehow next year.

As it was, if you were going to do the speech, then yes, it did make some sense to put Dustin over. I do think the fans were down during the match, bummed out by the severity of Cole's words. The concussion rumors came out later but it sounded even more dire than that in the moment. It's a little hard to tell given how the stadium was mic'd though. Given the build of Garcia's ten count punches, for instance, I refuse to believe the fans weren't counting along even if we couldn't hear it on PPV. 

And we love Dustin. Of course I'm glad Dustin went over. I have no idea how banged up he might be. Excalibur mentioned his shoulder and knees (a couple of times). He wrestled three times in two days and the Infantry match was pretty good. They do really deserve the ROH belts sometime soon for how far they've come but I get not doing it in Texas. I will say that the pre-show match was a little rough in general and leave it at that.

But yes, I'm glad Dustin went over and got his moment. I'm glad he's got a new contract. I'm glad that he can still go at such a high level, even if I do think he shies away a bit from his comparative advantage (strikes, selling) in a moment where heels exactly like Fletcher need babyfaces who know how to maximize their value. At one point before Bandido beat Jericho I had wanted him to win the ROH title here so he'd finally have that World Title, but in some ways, him finally getting the TNT title was a better journey. And that leads us to..

The Match Itself

They were still announcing Cole vs Fletcher until the night of the show (and my initial want for THAT was Fletcher to stall, Cole to finally get his hands on him, to go for the Sunrise too soon, and for Fletcher to pull his head up to crotch him and get a quick roll up and run to the back with the belt; sometimes you want to make people feel things). Plus Dustin, even the pro that he is, and Sammy had two other matches in a 24 hour period. 

With that in mind, this came together quite well really. Some of that was having Garcia and Fletcher as your anchors. Garcia brings so much to the table in a situation like this. He can fit into technical matches, spotfests, brawls, sprints. He can go full-on babyface or have an aggressive chip on his shoulder. He's been around AEW so long that he has history with almost everyone. In this case, it was with Sammy, who had given him the long leather pants at one point and was involved with the genesis of the dance. So they got to have a few moments in there working together before they came to blows.

And Fletcher was the straw that stirred the drink, the catalyst who everyone would work against, who would take opportunistic advantages, who would pull Garcia out of the ring when he had the Dragontamer on, who got to eat big crow by having all three of his opponents hit him with the Unnatural Kick in the most crowd pleasing spot of the match.

It was a spot that got him out of the way for a while as well. They did a pretty good job of that, including with a Sammy dive or two. The only spot that came off as entirely contrived to me was the dual figure-fours. Again, the last thing I want to see in a four-way match is a "waterfall" spot of people doing things they wouldn't normally do (it's ok if they do things that they WOULD do). Which is unfortunate because it's in almost every one. Garcia is a guy will use multiple submissions, and Fletcher got to make a scene over it, so ultimately it was plausible and it led to a great payoff after it got reversed. Fletcher seemed to want to reach for Garcia's hand and they almost had a moment before coming to their senses and pummeling each other. So here the cost, not too high in the first place, was worth the moment I suppose. I think Garcia's superplexes spot is a big mistake on multiple levels and that he'd accomplish more standing out with something like a heart punch that could be made to be over with the crowd despite not being nearly as flashy/damaging, but that's not something to litigate now.

I'm not going to say Sammy isn't a useful guy in these things in bringing action, movement, and sensation. I think in some ways he's gotten lapped by, let's say, Kevin Knight who was taking all sorts of gnarly bumps in the tag match that followed this. He hits clean and does what he's supposed to when he's supposed to do it, but I never quite find the soul in what he's hitting. You bought the animosity between him and Dustin towards the end after the miscommunication superkick, but just because you buy something doesn't mean it's entirely compelling (plausibility is a starting point, not the end point). 

All in all, though, it was an accomplishment that this was as solid as it was. Maybe it felt more like it belonged on Collision than in a stadium but it was more or less a cold match that came after a chilling speech. They got the crowd back a match or two later and this was there to stop the bleeding, make sure no one felt let down by something they were expecting, and to give Dustin the big homestate celebratory moment. 

Given the circumstances (and again, I bet I only know half of them, but what I do know is still daunting), it's a credit to the wrestlers involved that it came together as well as it did. I know that sometimes plans change and they never quite course correct. I still think that Fletcher could be an amazing TV champ, and I think that he could have a generational rivalry (think Cena vs Orton) against Garcia, but time will tell where everything falls now. On this night, given the situation they were facing, one that no one would have wanted them to face, I think they did the very best they could.

ROH Supercard of Honor 7/11/25

Athena vs Thunder Rosa

MD: Here's another one where it's best to just focus on the text. There was an intellectual challenge here. I remember watching Athena beat Mercedes Martinez for the title in Texas a couple of years ago. She had just started the heel run and she was gaining a ton of traction and momentum with Martinez presented as the babyface as the situation but the match itself was a bit of a muddle because the local fans really wanted to root for Athena.

So even though Rosa was a clear babyface coming into this one, they knew they'd have a problem and I think they set up the match accordingly. In this case, it was by having dueling bodypart work. Athena (who has plenty of varied and interesting offense) went after the back early, and Rosa sold for much of the match helping to create openings for Athena. Athena eventually ended up with a bum arm and that served as an equalizer. The sum of these two allowed for momentum shifts that weren't necessarily based on heel/face dynamics so the crowd was allowed to chant for both of them.

Then, late match, things took a pivot with Athena trying to escape up the ramp and Billie getting involved (though she got tossed into the stairs and she, herself, was able to sell her abdomen, even into the post match interview). So in order to land the plane they had Athena hit the big bomb through a table on the ramp onto Rosa and lean full heel. After that point, they got out of it pretty quickly, with Athena doing a great job listing to one side as she (still impressively) hefted Rosa up for the top rope bomb. 

I think if they had tried a more conventional heel vs face match for 10+ minutes, the crowd would have been much more of a problem. By leaning on the bodypart selling and introducing the notion of alignment only at the end, they still allowed for a satisfying finishing stretch but without the match collapsing in on itself before that and with Athena not losing any momentum heading into All In itself. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Blood In, Lights Out

6. Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs. Thunder Rosa AEW Dynamite 3/17

ER: Blood is maybe AEW's greatest contribution to modern TV wrestling (outside of giving Eddie Kingston a contract), and this was a match with some great blood. This started with Baker hitting a nice spear through the ropes during Rosa's entrance and dropping Rosa with an air raid crash on the ramp, which felt like a cool way a NOAH title match would have opened in 2003. It was a hot start, but lead to a little pedestrian patch, as the NOAH start turned into a kind of meandering ECW house show feel. These two have shown good hate through this feud, and while I like the old school feel of narrowly missed chairshots and chair choking, I'm glad we moved past it. After the hot start I think they ramped things up well, getting slightly more dangerous or violent before giving us a truly great Baker blade job. The big spots looked good, like that crazy Death Valley driver on the ladder. Baker's superkicks were both used really well, making contact at full extension to look really impactful. There were a couple of big reaction table spots, with Rebel getting knocked off the apron through one, and Rosa hitting a wild air raid crash of her own off the apron. 

The double juice was a real treat, something that still feels shocking on television in 2021. Baker hits a real gusher, a real classic mask that mats her hair and darkens her braid roots. Usually the most blood dentists see is when they floss a delinquent flosser. The thumbtacks were really well done, and had strong psychology with the way they were used. Commentary was surprised when Baker kicked out of a powerbomb into the tacks, but in this case the tacks were used as a revive. If you fall into fire, your brain will respond to the pain of the fire as more important than the pain of the fall. These tacks overwhelmed the back bump. Baker is a total nut to get thrown into that many tacks, and I loved how Rosa used them in the finish. I wanted to see Baker win with the lockjaw, but I exclaimed loudly when Rose broke the sub by rolling Baker into a cradle, holding her down in the tacks. It was real gross and a surprise, and made it all feel worthy of a feud culmination. 

PAS: I agree that the blood really made this match. Without it, this was basically a 2020s plunder street fight match with all of the ladders, tables and chairs which have become really perfunctory lately. When you add that claret though it really makes all of the big spots and bumps way more meaningful. Baker doesn't just get her face smashed into a ladder, she gets her face smashed into a ladder and pulses blood. All of the thumbtack stuff is a bit passé too, but I did like how gross Baker's bumps into it were, and countering Baker's crossface submission by rolling her into the tacks was nasty stuff. By the end it really did feel like a war, and a heck of an effort.

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/3/21

What Worked

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

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

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

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

What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/18/20

 What Worked

-I'm never excited to see Kip Sabian wrestling on TV, but I appreciate that AEW has significantly cut down on his televised ring time. There was one point earlier this year where Sabian had actually wrestled more TV matches than anyone else on the roster, and I am thankful that AEW at least realized how fucking stupid that was and now only put him on TV occasionally, rather than weekly. 

-I like the level of temper tantrum unprofessionalism that pours out of Thunder Rosa during her matches, always makes things way more interesting than the typical bad women's matches they put on. There are always a couple of things that land in meaner than normal areas and you just don't see that in other AEW women's matches. I liked her hitting a hard senton right across Serena Deeb's chest, Schiavone says "Her reputation is well earned," and I think he was talking about her match quality but that's not what I think of when I hear she has a reputation. I like her unprofessionalism the most when it actually applies to a good match, and this was a good match. There was messiness, which is baked in at this point, and the roll up counter stuff at the end felt completely unnecessary, but I liked a lot of this. Deeb's Tenryu powerbomb after Baker snuck in a swinging neckbreaker on the ramp was a great nearfall (bad move hanging in the crowd after the match, Britt), some shots to the jaw landed great, loved Deeb scraping her boot on Rosa's face and hitting a cool diving shoulder tackle off the ropes. 

What Didn't Work

-It's cool that AEW gives high profile TV time to a team like Top Flight, but I cannot imagine a new team working a style I'm any less interested in than Top Flight. It feels like every single indy I have access to has 1-2 teams exactly like Top Flight, who all do at least One Cool Athletic Thing and really wholly on taking moves to reverse moves and need opponents to be in very specific locations for the bulk of their offense to work. There were a couple cool moves, and I liked the speed Duante brought to cartwheels and the impressive height he got on leapfrogs. But I'm going to need to see more than someone hitting the same tope con hilo that literally two dozen guys on the AEW roster can also (and do!) hit. I hate that kind of offense where someone takes a move, but then that move gives them the power to reverse a move. Duante took a Finlay roll from Matt Jackson and then just turned it into a crucifix pin. I guess it looked cool, but if you can just eat offense and act like that gives you leverage to take a pin, I'm probably not going to understand it. But I'm sure many people are stoked to see more guys on TV who can go through the motions of hitting a dragon rana, and not care that neither leg actually hooked the shoulders on said rana. 

-Kip Sabian is a good opponent for Orange Cassidy to work his hands-in-pocket offense against, because Kip Sabian's strikes never look like they actually connect with anything anyway, so it makes sense that Cassidy is so easily able to avoid it. Sabian's wrestling is really confusing, because him throwing elbows, or kicks to the stomach don't look like it is connecting anyway, so when he misses a clothesline I can't always tell if it is just Cassidy avoiding him or if that was Sabian's finisher. I liked Cassidy blocking the drop toehold and stepping out of it, because it looked like a drop toehold that would not have taken anyone down. Appropriate sell. Sabian actually hits two clotheslines during picture in picture, and they actually do make the same amount of contact as the missed clothesline earlier. He also makes the decision to throw a dropkick at a turnbuckle, which I can only assume was his intention because Cassidy moved away from the turnbuckle well before Sabian threw the dropkick. Odd choice. He also made it so his head only connected 1 of 3 times while being hit into turnbuckles, so there's a strong chance that Kip Sabian is playing some weird game of wrestling telephone, where he is interpreting movements as explained to him by several different wrestlers but without ever actually seeing pro wrestling. 

-THAT was the promised contract signing!? I love a good contract signing, and a decent contract signing is something that even the worst era WWE can still make look good. But this was one dry dick of a contract signing. Moxley attacked backstage and rubbing his head while Omega gets all his Observer accomplishments listed? Fuck man just shove a table onto someone. 

-You put Eddie Kingston on commentary and then cut right to a commercial? I had to listen to Miro mumble his way through a brutally bad Kip Sabian match with a far shorter commercial break. That's just the lousiest time management. 

-PAC/Blade was not the comeback match I assume the wanted for PAC. They did that dumb kind of shit where they chase each other back and forth to opposing turnbuckles and kick each other in the head, lotta boots to the head that didn't actually look good. PAC hits a missile dropkick that Blade doesn't quite get into position for so it just looked like PAC took the hardest possible back bump off the top. Blade's powerslam looked good, the superplex looked good, but a lot of this match stunk. 

-Sadly, I got into a very long and very pointless argument during the main event, so missed a chunk of the middle. That stretch I missed could have been very awesome. The parts that I saw were not good, primarily due to Brian Cage working like a really terrible joshi wrestler. Gimme them shitty enziguiris and keep working like a 140 lb. woman, yeah! I thought several moments looked off and I still do not understand all of the praise I see for Ricky Starks. Is this the same kind of praise that people gave to MJF when he first became a thing a year or two ago? Or the way a bunch of people thought Damien Sandow was the fucking future 7 years ago? 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 9/23/20

What Worked

-Evil Uno/Hangman eeks onto the top side here just because I still like what Uno brings to AEW. Page has several cool bits of offense and then other things he should drop entirely. Things like his moonsault off the apron that rarely connects, offense like that just looks silly with his character. It's that Silas Young thing where he looks like James Gammon and is a real man, then goes out and wrestles like a bad Chris Sabin clone. Page needs to drop the flips and just focus on cool fallaway slams and big lariats, because those things work well within his character AND are moves that look good. I really liked the fallaway slam where he held a bridge, not an easy thing to do. Uno is someone in AEW who makes little things look good, but here he also gets to splat Page with a huge cannonball off the top. The match wasn't perfect, but Uno made Page's offense look good (Page makes stuff look good, but Uno helped with some things), so this landed up top.

-Uno was selling his head and neck around ringside during the Lee/Cassidy match and that rules.

-Cassidy/Brodie was a good use of bullshit that leaves the door open for Cassidy to get some kind of cage match revenge. I dug Lee knocking Cassidy's block off after the hands went in the pockets, but I am a fan of the hands in pockets spots. His dive that was caught by the Dark Order was a cool trick, and they managed to all impressively scatter at the right time to make it look like Cassidy actually got the worst of Lee's dive. Lee has a few too many goofy twists and turns to his offense still, but he's great at barreling into Cassidy with falling lariats and big boots, and I loved that grounded side headlock he worked during the commercial break (also hit a great elbowdrop during the break, shame some of his coolest stuff was during the break). Cassidy's comeback was good and I liked the way they worked in him dealing with the Dark Order (lots of fun work with him dodging interference in between hitting dives), dealing with them leading to him getting blown up. Run this back, throw them in a cage, give me a Cassidy pockets dive off the top of the cage.

-I like a good "look we WANT to fight you guys, but that wouldn't be fair to YOU because of how beat up you are" and FTR pulled off that attitude well.

-You know? Just keep matching up Thunder Rosa and Ivelisse every week. There have been plenty of AEW women's matches that are just actually bad, so it's way way way more interesting to just have two women in there who look and act like they genuinely hate each other. Having unprofessional looking exchanges is an upgrade over having bad looking rehearsed exchanges. There was plenty of stuff here that was out of sync (including a hilarious moment where Tony and JR are talking about how perfectly in sync Shida and Ivelisse were, as Ivelisse's timing was clearly off on two things in a row), but I'll take a couple out of sync moments if you give me some stiff punches and kicks. Every time Ivelisse and Rosa were in there together was noteworthy and the hate bled through the screen. Ivelisse mounted her and looked like she would have punched her right in the nose if Rosa didn't know how to cover up and buck her off, and it added a sick "what will happen next?" element to things. I dug Shida suplexing Ivelisse boots first into Diamante's face (with Rosa hitting slingshot knees after), and later Shida running across the ring to stop a hot tag by hitting a flying knee to Diamante on the apron. It didn't totally matter much as the finishing stretch fell apart a bit, but the falling apart was some of the best stuff here. Pure hate and actual emotion are things we don't get enough of in wrestling, so I celebrate this unprofessionalism and welcome it to my television.

22. Eddie Kingston vs. Jon Moxley

ER: It's cruel of AEW to make us wait two months for another Kings(ton) Road match in prime time, because of course King is going to deliver. I could watch Kingston sell chops all day, love watching him take a hit and see his muscle memory go to respond with a hit, only for the pain to hit mid throw. Gimme more of Kingston duck walking away holding his chest. You never get rote exchanges with King, the strikes are always mixed up and broken up with unexpected kicks. Kingston hits a lariat and  takes it to the floor, goes after Moxley's ear, yanks his waistband into an elbow to the back, dumps him into the timekeeper's table, and we get a nice tour of the AEW floor. King eats a vertical suplex and they both whip each other into the barricades. I love Kingston faces after he takes a suplex. We get too many idiotic facial reactions in wrestling, Kingston's reactions are the only ones that feel honest. These two kept it close and always punished lag, like Kingston headbutting Moxley off the top after Moxley left space between an elbow, or Moxley powering through a lariat after Kingston gloated a wee bit. We get some big moves, like Mox hitting a piledriver, or Kingston taking a big German suplex before dropping Mox with a backdrop, but there's never the feeling of moving from spot to spot. Kingston matches always feel like a strike battle broken up by occasional bigger moves, but everything is glued together with chops and headbutts and elbows. The sudden finish was awesome, with Moxley blocking a backfist and just pouncing on Kingston, dropping him to his knees with his weight while applying a sleeper that turns into a sick side headlock. Kingston is a man who knows how to make a side headlock look like a finish, turning purple and spitting, and Mox did his part by really hooking that chin. It's almost like Kingston needs to be wrestling on TV more.

PAS: All Japan Eddie Kingston isn't my favorite version of Eddie Kingston, although I love all versions. We are far enough removed from that era, that matches paying tribute to it don't seem as trite, and Kingston does that tribute stuff better than anyone. He understands that what made those matches great were timing and reaction and not just moves, and his reactions to getting hit were even cooler then the nastiness of the shots. Moxley had some cool little moments too, this wasn't just a Kingston showcase. I loved how he sold the downward elbows like he got a muscle cramp, and I really felt like he was excited to be working this kind of match and that excitement was contagious. I wish such a big chunk of this match wasn't in picture in picture, it's better then not getting it all, but they should time things better so your main event doesn't get chopped up. I thought the finish was really cool, no need for a bunch of near falls, that quick bulldog choke felt like an ending. Too bad it took COVID to slot Kingston in the main event where he belongs, but hopefully they realize he belongs there now, and a title rematch between these too - with a big build up - is the most exciting thing AEW could do right now.


What Didn't Work

-Opening tag was a real slog, not at all the kind of debut that made Miro looked like an asset. Miro looked fine in the match (although I couldn't stop laughing at JR fawning over his quads the whole time), but it went way too long, and it was easily the slowest paced match that Janela or Kiss have been involved with in AEW. Some nice individual moments (Kiss took a nice bump to the floor after Janela got shoved into him), but this whole thing felt sleepy.

-Jericho has made some pretty uninteresting on paper matches into interesting or even really good matches, but getting something good out of Private Party might be his greatest task. The promo didn't hit me, but I'll hold out hope.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 9/16/20

What Worked

-FTR get the tag match up here, but Luchasaurus kept trying to drag it down. Luchasaurus is at his best when he's working as first year Test, and he is near unbearable when he is Test working as a Young Buck. Luckily, he worked more Test than Buck (the one stretch with him as an Cretaceous Buck was as bad as ever), and weirdly enough Jungle Boy is way better when he doesn't do as many moves. Jungle Boy is someone who actually does some small things well (I am a big fan of his dropdown) but I don't really love his highspots. Well, here he worked down as well and I think the match benefitted from that. It also benefitted from Cash Wheeler bumping hard (the Psicosis bump was awesome) and that sneaky pinfall win was legitimately the most they felt like the Brain Busters since joining AEW.

-What a great little Frankie Kazarian performance. That has to be the best Frankie Kazarian match since....well, I can't remember the last time I talked about a great Frankie Kazarian performance. The match went longer than it needed, but Kazarian working his age is a good thing, as Page was the one here who was working much more silly offense. Kazarian not only made some of Page's more suspect offense look great (Page usually has a weak pescado, here Kazarian made it look lung deflating), leaned all the way into clotheslines, always in the right place at the right time. What I liked most about Kazarian, and what felt most age appropriate about his offense was all of the right hands he threw. Kazarian isn't a guy I think of as a "puncher", and I'm not sure I've seen a match where he threw more. I like his right hand. He's got good form and it's a genuinely nice worked punch, and I liked the way he used it to cut off Page throughout the match. He tightened up elbow strikes too, and used that to nicely cut off Page as well. I hate the stuff like "run down the length of the apron just to get clotheslined without even trying to do offense, just running down the apron" or "I hit you and run but you run after me and hit me but then I run after you and hit you" and the match did have that bullshit. But it also had Kazarian blocking a bulldog by snapping off a Russian legsweep variation, and the Kazarian performance elevated this to a level I wasn't expecting. Good match.

-Kingston on the mic, gonna be up here. "Check the rules."

-I really liked Hager in that tag. Not sure what's happening tonight, but I didn't have Kazarian or Hager on my list of guys I was looking forward to seeing. Hager bumped super generously for Private Party without making it look ridiculous, and all his close range work looked great. I dug Kassidy ragdolling for the Judas Effect, and Jericho punching Quen across the temples, but Hager was the real standout for me here. He had an actual cool reckless shooter vibe that I think he's tried before but never quite nailed. The dives looked good, they got out of there at the right time, fun quick match.

-Thunder Rosa/Ivelisse was pretty messy, but I liked the layout and the messiness looked like it lead to more stiff strikes than we might have otherwise gotten. Hitting sloppy ranas and mirror sequences where someone is one beat off? That kind of thing sucks, but I laughed when Ivelisse cracked Rosa with a slap, and laughed again when Rosa stopped Ivelisse dead in her tracks by burying a hard dropkick in her stomach. Ivelisse worked a nice sleeper choke (sadly marginalized into picture in picture) and if the execution where stronger throughout this would have been quite good. I bet they could run back this same match and some sequences would come out tighter. Even with the flaws, it stood above most other AEW women's matches so far.

-I did not care about the Best Friends/LAX build, hate Chuck Taylor feuds, wouldn't have ever guessed it could go somewhere interesting. And then they go out and have an insanely violent Zona 23 style parking lot brawl. What? This had some spills in it (a LOT, really) that were as nasty or nastier than anything in the Finlay/Regal parking lot brawl. Am I stupid for saying a match with Chuck Taylor had tons of comparably violent moments to two a famously violent match featuring two of my 20 favorite wrestlers of all time? Possibly, but I loved the damage these four took. This match had some of the most gruesome vehicle-based spots I've seen. By the end of this everyone was bleeding out of places that don't typically bleed in a wrestling match. Ortiz got jammed under the hood of a car and crushed in painful ways by Taylor and Trent, Trent hitting a senton while Ortiz's leg was still hanging out. Trent got powerbombed into the windshield of a truck, and while the announcers were focusing on his cut up back from the glass I couldn't stop seeing the back of his head getting whipped into the top frame. Sure, that bloody back is gonna mess up the upholstery of his mom's minivan, but that check to the back of the head is gonna mess up his cognitive functions in his 60s. Trent also got slingshotted straight into a down truck tailgate, so he was really trying to be an equal opportunity brainpan destroyer. The board shots all looked nasty (especially Ortiz cracking Trent in the back and then blasting him in the ribs). Powerbombs on truck tops, backdrops on cars, spears into a car grill, and a piledriver off a truck tool box? Yeah, shoot that in my veins.


What Didn't Work

-MJF should get that mark on his neck checked out. I have an irregular shaped mark on my chest and getting it checked out was a real weight off my mind. Someone needs to be monitoring that mark and make sure it's not growing. Can we get some 2018 MJF photos where he's facing to his right?

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 9/2/20

What Worked

-I tuned in late and missed a Chuck Taylor match. That works.

-The 8 man tag was fine, I guess. I would rather see most of these guys in an 8 man rather than in a traditional tag, so that's a plus. You'd think some of the spot set up would be a little less meh, but a lot of the stuff looked good. I thought this was a good Isiah Kassidy performance, really dug his middle rope springboard rana and thought he was slick at getting up for some pretty complicated double teams, and his partner Quen bumped big for a Jungle Boy lariat. Kazarian's springboard legdrop still lands well, Luchasaurus still looks like a goof doing anything, but this was fine.

-Loved Jericho/Janela, with Jericho beating the blood out of Janela while Cassidy looked on. Janela stood in there and took his beating to put over someone else's match, and Jericho really stiffed him up. Janela looked good in a multiman last week, but I like him getting roughed up by short knees and hard punches even more. Jericho was really clonking him in the temple with big fists, then worked over a cut with more punches as Janela bled. Hell yeah.

-Kingston came out and immediately out-talked and ran right over Taz and Jake Roberts. The in ring schmozz after was entertaining, tons of guys took painful bumps over the top and off the apron to the floor, Shawn Spears was throwing potatoes, Kingston was weirdly paired off with Billy Gunn for a long time, and it kind of lost steam after coming back from break. Still, a fun schmozz, and Brian Cage is a goof for going after Kingston with a flimsy superkick. This guy ran you down, and you run up to fight him with a bad superkick? What a goof.

What Didn't Work 

-Omega/Page/FTR came off like guys who being naught because they drink beerz and say swearz. They all came off like dinks. It didn't make me more interested in whatever wrestling they're building to.

-I didn't even realize Serena Deeb was even wrestling, so it was cool to see her, even if she looks more like Selina Majors/Bambi now. Thunder Rosa is someone with strong execution, who always needs to get her shit in, so you knew that whatever story is being told in the first half of a match will not matter at all. So I really liked the pre-commercial part of the match, dug Deeb slamming Rosa's knee into the mat and dropping her with a neckbreaker over the middle rope. A lot of Rosa's stuff looked good, but a match worked around Rosa selling a leg would have been much more interesting that Rosa roaring back like Deeb hadn't ever been in control. Her dropkick to Deeb's chest in the ropes looked good, she had a hard backfist, dug the battles over a backslide, and the Thunder Driver looked painful. But I can never get into her matches where she takes moves until it's time for her moves.

-Can't call that go home segment with Moxley beating up Mark Sterling. I don't know if I've heard a quieter AEW crowd. I would have called MJF bloodying up Moxley afterwards a win, but AEW already has done WAY cooler bloody builds for TWO other matches on this PPV. You aren't going to beat the blood that has been spilled between Hardy and Sammy, and this MJF segment played almost exactly like Jericho beating up and bloodying Janela not one hour before. Except Jericho wasn't yelling like a doofus into the camera. Bloody angles are cool! But this just came off like them building every singles match nearly exactly the same. MJF is a much better wrestler than a talker. The talking just doesn't come off naturally for me.

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Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 3: The Hunt is On...

1. Bengala vs. Kobra Moon

ER: Wow, I'm so happy I managed to not get this spoiled as I had no clue Kobra Moon was Thunder Rosa! I've had the privilege of doing commentary on a few of her matches, as she works all over the Bay Area - including several shows for Phoenix Pro Wrestling. She's barely been wrestling a year, so it's a little crazy to see her get a TV gig. She's really nice, and clearly worked hard over this last year. So color me surprised when I recognized her through her mask and weird....snake tongue waggling? The snake stuff does not really work for me, but I'll give her credit for committing to things. If the producers told her to act like a snake, but a snake that is also a professional wrestler, I'd be hard-pressed to think of someone who did a better job of acting like a snake within a pro wrestling ring. Now, the match wasn't very good. I'm not excited for even more intergender stuff in this fed. I'm confident it won't be as bad as the Sexy Star stuff, but intergender matches have such a lower ceiling (and lower floor). As far as I know Rosa hasn't worked intergender matches up here, so it would be odd that they'd specifically bring in someone who has just a year under their belt, and then make them work a format they haven't worked before. She's very small, and I just can't see how that will work out. Match was fairly short, with Kobra hitting a rana to the floor, hitting a nice axe kick, doing a nice job of getting the knees up late on a Bengala splash. But Ricky Marvin isn't a very big guy and was much bigger than her here, already stretching the plausibility of things. So I'm left with a weird neutral feeling, as I could not be happier for her to be getting this opportunity, but I'm also unsure where she fits into the fed.

PAS: Ricky Marvin is also a bigger guy then he was last season, he is starting to get Super Astroish, but I am not sure if his agility has caught up to him yet. I liked the snake stuff in theory, although that choke sleeper looked barely applied. This didn't do much for me, and Kobra Moon looked a little too fragile to be a threat, Aja Kong I could buy kicking guys asses, not so sure about this girl who looked 105 pounds.

ER: I'll level with you, I didn't really understand that Aerostar vignette.

PAS: I think he is a time traveling space alien? Vignettes have gotten stupider and stupider this season, they feel like they are leaning into the Chikara which is not where I want to see this show go. Is there a dumber idea in wrestling history then Big Ryck getting murdered in the comic book? By the Disciples of Death who are Rough and Ready in the actual wrestling portion of the show, but apparently savage murder machines in the canon comic book. I like this show mostly but wrestling being taken over by Comic Con dorks is the fucking worst. I don't need a pro-wrestling extended universe.

2. Jack Evans vs. Drago

ER: So Jack Evans is probably a crazy person. I can't understand how his body lands the way it does sometimes. He finds a funny and dangerous tone here, doing silly stuff like bumping a slap with a 720, doing a funny cartwheel handspring eye gouge, hit little peekaboo through his legs on the top rope that leads to him getting superkicked...but then also just getting dumped on his head a couple times in a fast neck snapping way, or taking a rough DDT while draped over the top tope. I don't need him to go full Kenny Omega or anything, and some stuff eeks a little close, but he seems to know how to read the room. Drago had some fun moments and I really liked him in the opening minute bullying Evans into the ropes a bunch. But spotlight was kind of on Evans here.

PAS: I thought this was a little Shawn Michaels vs. Hoganish with Evans taking these outlandish over the top bumps for simple things. I like the idea of Jack calling himself the Dragonslayer but he is at his best taking big beatings, I wish they were setting up Jack vs. Muertes or Matanza where those spinning bumps would make more sense.

ER: Texano had kind of a misfire of a last season, but this package did a nice job of making his time here seem a bit more impactful. And just when I was rolling my eyes at yet another vignette of masked guys jumping a LU guy and getting beaten down, Texano starts breaking everything in sight with his bullrope and it gets awesome. Breaking beer bottles out of hands, breaking tables in half, busting chairs that get thrown at him. El Texano, The Whipmaster is infinitely more interesting than a feud with Daivari.

PAS: I did like the bullrope stuff, but man are the vignettes repetitive and lazy this year, does everyone live in some alternative universe where people in lucha masks are attacking people in the streets? Is this Frank Miller's Gotham?

3. Last Luchador Standing: Fenix vs. King Cuerno

ER: This fed knows how to doll up for their gimmick matches and this was no different. After a little early clumsiness with Cuerno balancing on the top rope while Fenix balanced on the opposing top rope things picked up big with Cuerno taking a big bump over the top, only to move out of the way as Fenix tope'd into nothing. Yes please. They use their sound sweetening for good as Fenix gets tossed into the ringpost and they do this great *ping* sound that sent shock waves down my hands thinking about fouling a pitch off in just the wrong way. Cuerno continues the beating by tossing Fenix through a row of chairs. Cuerno got to be a real badass throughout this, as Fenix got to hit some flashy dives (including his awesome springboard tornillo from the middle rope), but Cuerno would always cut him off, eventually knocking him to the floor and hitting the sick arrow tope past the ringpost. They shot the dive with the overhead camera and it was easily the best use of that camera angle yet. Everything builds to what we think is going to be a lunatic bump off of Dario's office, from a fed who loves doing lunatic bumps off of Dario's office. And unexpectedly, instead, Cuerno just takes a BRUTAL bump through a set up table, falling off the ladder. This may have been the nastiest bump in LU's history. And it's all because, for some reason, Cuerno HELD ONTO THE LADDER while falling!! So you just had this slow fallback as the physics of a man on a ladder shifted, and started to tilt back, and then he just kept hanging on tight to that ladder, all the way through the table and through the floor. You don't need sound sweetening to enhance the THUMP his body made. Cuerno was like Wile E. Coyote using an Acme drill to weaken a cliff side, and as he drills all the way through the cliff and begins falling to his sure death, he's still there in the sky, falling while drilling. That was Cuerno, just holding onto that ladder as he fell to his sure death. Insane.

PAS: This was a step below some of the absolute peak LU gimmick matches, but this was very good. Fenix is a guy I haven't loved outside of LU, but he is great in these kind of over the top brawls. He gets such great height on his dives and takes huge bumps. He also has a sense of dramatic timing which really comes in play in these kind of big main events. Cuerno was great too that final bump was truly nuts and truly unexpected.

ER: I'm predicting Phil will hate the cop show sketch to end things, and I definitely do think they need to pick a side, with Reyes playing things too serious (badly) and Ryan playing things too hammy (badly), but I foolishly like the angle of a vice squad put together specifically to take down madman Dario Cueto. Plus we got confirmation that B-Boy actually DID have his face eaten off.

PAS: This was super dumb, if you are going to do some convoluted crime story at least have it make internal sense. Reyes says "I should have brought him in when his brother killed Bael" and there is no answer and the whole story get exposed,  and then you have Joey Ryan playing a cop in a gay porn and that means we have to watch Joey Ryan. Cuerno was fun as a hammy evil promoter early in this feds run, but the more they have tried to build some sort of B movie horror film the dumber it has gotten. This is Hellraiser 6 level writing and completely divorced from what makes this fed good.


LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE

**And we liked the Last Luchador Standing match enough to include it on our 2015 MOTY List (You see, it was recorded in November 2015, even though it aired 3 months later)**

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