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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Found Footage Friday: BOCK~! HEENAN~! SD MARK II~! CMLL 4 vs 3~! DUSTY~! DUSTIN~! CODY~!

Nick Bockwinkel/Bobby Heenan vs. Greg Gagne/Super Destroyer Mark II AWA 10/3/80

MD: A recent find from a Wrestling Playlists disc buy. You know the deal. Follow along with the work. This was a blast. Perfect pro wrestling. Destroyer is Slaughter of course. Heenan and Bockwinkel make a big stink out of it to start. This was supposed to be a Loser-Wears-the-Weasel Suit match and they refuse to wrestle if that's the stip. Therefore, they will be heavily fined or suspended but the local promoter says that the match will still take place for the fans. 

Heenan is great here as you would imagine, but he spends a lot of this on the apron or getting cheapshots in with one big moment of comeuppance in the middle and another at the end. It's really all on Bockwinkel who stooges all over the place. Because he doesn't have a competent partner, he's even further behind the eightball and he absolutely wrestles that way, getting knocked around the ring, keeling over after shots, getting abused by both wrestlers. They have a few moments of heat where they're able to get over either by Gagne missing a dropkick or Bockwinkel getting Destroyer in the eyes and following up with a King of the Mountain but it's never for long. Gagne has a great hot tag in as he hits his dropkicks with the second into a nice upkick right onto a charging Bock. 

Finish is Heenan loading up his broken arm and nailing Destroyer from behind so Bockwinkel can pin him. Post-match he demands the weasel suit to put on Gagne because they won but the babyfaces get the better of them and slip it on him. Nice bit here as Destroyer goes to Bockwinkel who is all tangled in the corner and  forcibly shakes his hand before they leave. Post match, Bockwinkel gets the weasel suit off of Heenan and starts beating it up. Just a great bit of emotional vulnerability to send the fans home happy by someone who is usually so buttoned up. 

ER: What a perfect vibe. I think I need to go through a real AWA phase. The vibes don't get much better than this. Heenan and Bockwinkel are a perfect team, Greg Gagne is a guy who is way underrated and undervalued as a babyface, Slaughter is legitimately one of the hardest working big men of all time. The Peg never felt hotter. Everyone did everything I loved seeing them do in this match. Heel Bockwinkel is some incredible stuff. Heel Bockwinkel feels like Billy Robinson crossed with Ric Flair. Heenan is like Buddy Roberts crossed with Tully Blanchard. Everyone throws strikes here that are perfect for who they are. Heenan's 3/4 arm slot attacks with his cast looked like Gagne should have been left bruised. Heenan looked like he should have been scared of Slaughter and fought him accordingly. Bockwinkel looked like he really wanted to snap Greg's neck over the top rope. 

Heenan's Race bump was one of the most incredible versions of that spot. Heenan had this amazing knack for "holding on". Race would tumble dangerously to the floor on his. When I think of any great over the top bump it's always accompanied by "to the floor". But Heenan had this way of hanging onto bumps that made them feel even more dangerous than if he had let go and flown to the floor. It feels like he's body is being torn in multiple directions. I wonder how many weasel suits there were. He's the only wrestler in history to get pulled into a fur suit to rabid reaction for well over a decade. It's impossible to not love Bobby when he's losing his mind in his Where the Wild Things Are fur suit. The zipper always gets stuck, but this time we get to experience the joy of Nick Bockwinkel being flustered while he's trying to get Bobby out of the suit. We have that now. 

Gigante Silva/Atlantis/Tinieblas Jr. vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Gran Markus Jr./Pierroth Jr./Violencia CMLL 09/05/00

MD: Another that Charles salvaged from old discs. I'm not sure I've ever heard of CMLL doing a 4-on-3 match like this but here we go. Pierroth and Silva were the captains and Pierroth had a ton of heat with the crowd,  especially the Arena Coliseo tecnico cheering section which was loud and rowdy and chanting for Mexico the whole way through. The rudos swarmed Atlantis to start staying on him and then Tinieblas pinballing them from one to the other. Once Tinieblas went out they did something I'm not sure I've ever seen before; they pulled Atlantis back in so that Silva couldn't come in. They were even cutting off the ring.

This all led to a huge tug of war spot, but with Atlantis' arms being what they were tugging on. All of the rudos and Atlantis went tumbling across the ring, heralding Silva's real entrance to the match. The rudos tried to swarm him but he managed to whip all of them across the ring in a 4 person Irish Whip. Then he hit a corner clothesline and let me tell you, if you told me that he had killed someone in the ring and not Khali, I would totally believe you with how brutal his shots looked. I don't know if the rudos just asked him to go full on or if he didn't know how not to but every strike was grisly.

The comedy kept coming as Atlantis and Tinieblas lured them into a bunch of rudo miscommunication (a lot of which was Markus, who had lost his mask by this point, crushing his own partners), before they built to endless Atlantis and Tinieblas big splashes on all four rudos, before Silva got to finish it off. This was about ten minutes of ringtime in one fall and definitely didn't wear out its welcome. Fun stuff.

Dusty Rhodes/Goldust/Cody Rhodes vs. Dudebusters (Trent Baretta/Curt Hawkins/Caylen Croft) FCW 7/9/10

MD: If the Vault isn't going to give us old Greensboro and Omni, something special like this, something one of a kind, is up there on what I'd want. This was Dusty's last match, teaming with his sons (one a face, one normally a heel), up against the hottest heel act FCW had to offer at the time in the Dudebusters. Baretta and Croft had their act and it was bolstered with Hawkins returning. At the time, I thought they'd all join Ryder (who had spent 2009 coming into his own on ECW) on the main roster to be his muscle and they could have gotten a good midcard (maybe IC title level) act out of all of it. It was not meant to be. 

I love the presentation here. It's one camera with a bunch of interface noise (like a 16 bit line and contrast or whatever and a little golfing guy icon). The Dudebusters come out with white Dusty Sucks Eggs t-shirts. Dusty and family come out to his WWF theme song, cowbell and all. Dustin is Goldust. Cody is Dashing (but no mustache or faceguard yet).

Cody is set to start but Dusty tags in and I absolutely love how the Dudebusters sell for the idea of him, scattering and leaping up to the top rope just because he entered the ring. Obviously the crowd is going to go nuts at the idea of Dusty driving them nuts. They're selling not a punch or a kick but an idea and an ideal and a larger than life presence. That's beautiful pro wrestling and we see so little of it in 2024. Cody felt a little looser than usual in this setting and Dustin was having a blast, including playing off a Dudebusters deal where the kept kissing his cheek by moving so they ended up kissing each other. This was the first time that Cody and Dustin teamed that we know of and they had some fun tandem stuff (like a catapult bounce back onto the knees/second rope move combo). In general, Dustin was moving great in there and looked like a million bucks.

Eventually the Dudebusters used a distraction to take over on Cody and we got the first of a double heat. They controlled the ring well. The hot tag to Dustin wasn't so hot but that's because the real one was going to be to Dusty later. They took back on him with another bit of distraction (they were good at that). It all built to the true hot tag to Dusty, the place exploding, and Dusty hitting a couple of things before picking up the win. As celebratory and reverent as it should have been but a better match than it needed to be because they let the Dudebusters take so much of it.

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: AEW PARKING LOT BRAWL 2

 

13. Trent Beretta/Chuck Taylor vs. Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley AEW Rampage 8/4/23

ER: This is the second Best Friends Parking Lot match, and if the Height of the Pandemic words I wrote about the first one are to be believed, I thought that one was one of the best matches of the year. That one was against LAX, who doesn't exist anymore. This one is against Blackpool Combat Club, who didn't exist then but is as good and as watchable as LAX was then. But this wasn't as good as that and I know that even though I couldn't tell you one clear detail of that first match which I loved if you had a gun to my face, I would guess, but it would be a lie and I would spend some days unexpectedly suddenly afraid that I cheated death and would someday be forced to pay back double. That first match was the first match Chuck Taylor was a part of that I thought was great. Now it's a couple years later and he has the dark red cheeks of a man with lupus and it reminds us all how we've aged since our last parking lot fight a couple years ago. 

This match knew what it was, in a way that hurt it. It didn't have the freshness or the element of surprise that the original had. This was violent - Trent Beretta essentially got busted open good in the first few seconds - but had this weird approach where everything that happened in the parking lot was equally damaging as anything else that happened in the parking lot. Selling is less important to me in matches where guys are just taking "real" bumps. But this felt long in ways the other one didn't, moving at a pace that was like the match walking alongside itself. Getting hit with a spoiler was about the same as getting piledriven on the roof of a KIA which was about the same as getting powerbombed through a windshield. The price was about 3 seconds. It felt like they were on an itinerary. But also Trent Beretta tried to recreate the legendary Real Parking Lot Fight where Cliff Booth threw Bruce Lee into the side of a Lincoln Continental. 

Really it's the Trent Beretta match. That's why we watch this. We love Claudio doing strong man spots in a junkyard brawl, we love Moxley bleeding almost as quickly as Trent, but Beretta is the guy doing the spots you want to see on cars. That cannon ball into the side of the car was sick, Claudio press slammed him on top of a car, he got slammed inside the engine and stayed inside as Taylor was powerbombed on the hood, he gets bombed through a windshield, Claudio swings him into the head of one of those big yard waste bins, and every time he fought back his offense it was just him taking the same awful falls only offensively instead of defensively. He drove this forward and his body kept taking the most real bumps on concrete and cars and then getting right back up to do it again. I don't give a shit about his mom. Chuck Taylor siphoning gasoline should have led to something special - and I'm not looking up whether Taylor actually siphoned like a divorced dad who hates his wife's new boyfriend, because I believed he was that man; eyes flaring redder than his rosacea cheeks, he thought only of his hallway that used to be lined with pictures. But a man siphoning gasoline shouldn't lead to the weakest stretch of the match, not when guys are out there killings themselves. 

Trent Beretta is a guy who I just realized has three different Tags on our site because I've spelled his name differently three different times. But I thought he was so good in this match that it made me take the time to go back and fix all of the times we tagged him as Trent Barretta. I didn't have the energy to update the ones that just used Trent. 

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 1/1 - 1/7

AEW Collision 1/6/23

Darby Allin/Sting vs. Workhorsemen

MD: I was going to start this one with "Everything has to matter." I'm not quite sure I can get away with that though. I mean, I probably can. If you're reading this, you know what you're in for. I'm already sparing you guys another dissertation on how the commercial break saved Darby vs. Takeshita from itself (you're welcome). I just think sometimes it's worth spelling this stuff out lest it get overlooked in the sea of sensation and innovation, right? 

This was a short match full of things mattering. Let's lead with purpose. Why does this match exist? They wanted to get Sting in front of the Charlotte crowd one last time. They wanted to heat things up a bit for the Takeshita/Hobbs match. Maybe it was a bit of an achievement award for the Workhorsemen too, to be in their home base and up against a lifelong hero. It was there to start the show off hot, maybe even to help with the first quarter rating? In and out in ten minutes with Flair and Sting/Darby's entrance, outroing to a video package for Wednesday's tag, with their promo coming later in the show. So you can't just have Sting and Darby run over the Workhorsemen, but you couldn't have the Workhorsemen take too much of it either. You needed a wedge, a point a reason. You needed Stan Hansen smashing his arm into the post on the outside and then having his arm worked over by someone who needed a wedge to get the advantage and stay in it. 

It all has to matter. Hierarchy has to matter. An ambush before the match has to matter. Henry's slick skill and Drake's size and timing have to matter. Sting's preternatural ability to stand up to a chair without flinching and Darby's preternatural ability to take endless amounts of punishment have to matter. Darby fighting from underneath has to matter. Henry's ability to cut him off has to matter. The potential of a guy Drake's size flipping feet over head and landing with all of his weight from the top rope has to matter. The impact of that missing has to matter. Darby's dive from the top to the floor has to matter, and Sting being able to destroy someone twice his size with the Stinger Splash and Scorpion Death Drop, well, it has to matter.

And they nailed it. The ambush created the wedge but not without having to overcome Sting being Sting (which allowed for a tremendously short shine on the outside given the overall length of the match). That wedge, combined with Henry's skill, was just enough to sweep Darby out on the apron and take out Sting's leg. Darby immediately fought back but was cut off in the ring. It built to Drake going for and missing the moonsault, and then Sting taking care of business on Drake while Darby hit the coffin drop to the floor on Henry, taking him out of the match. The Workhorsemen are great. This match could have been greater with another five or ten minutes. It wasn't supposed to be a "great match," though. That wasn't its purpose. For one thing, they couldn't overshadow the main event. This was to be a celebratory moment of Sting (and Flair) in Charlotte, with just enough friction and tension to make it feel earned and worthwhile for the crowd that got to enjoy it. They don't give out stars for that, but everyone in this one absolutely shined for what they were set out to accomplish.

Eddie Kingston vs. Trent Barretta

MD: As I've written about (at length, it feels like), we've generally seen Eddie Kingston as ROH champ ace, primarily in Proving Ground matches against younger competitors. We've seen him grow into the next evolution of that role during the Continental Classic, getting torn down so he could build himself back up. In this, his first defense of the newly formed Crown, he came in poised and centered and up against, interestingly enough, someone who had his own chip on his own shoulder. 

Eddie has a few years on Trent, but you can argue, quite easily I'd add, that Trent had outpaced Eddie throughout much of his career. He made it into WWE developmental, and even won titles there. He made it onto the main roster, even if without a big splash. He was a champion in New Japan. He was a debut AEW talent. Yet here, after Eddie's ascendant year, Trent failed to capitalize big opportunity after big opportunity after big opportunity. 

So he came in swinging against Eddie, who held back, game and ready. He got a few shots in early, but in a lot of ways, it felt like Trent was wrestling as Eddie had in the past. He was wrestling to prove his toughness, to prove that he fit in, to prove that he deserved to be there. He wasn't wrestling to win. Suddenly, Eddie wasn't just a guy carrying a brand or a roster or a show up on his shoulders. He was the bar. Somewhere along the line over the last tumultuous, hard-fought months, Eddie had taken that "Proving Ground" moniker and made it something real. He was the paragon, the iron that honed iron, the symbol of excellence for professional wrestling.

And Trent needed to throw everything he had at him in order to show the world (and his mom) that he belonged. Unfortunately, that didn't mean wrestling a perfect match but instead a chippy, aggressive one. It meant that Trent always had a show to fire back with, even maybe when he shouldn't. As Eddie was blasting him in the corner with the rapid fire chops, Trent was able to get a shot in. Eddie, almost reflexively, chopped him right between the eyes and opened him up. That took the tone of the first few minutes of the match and led them to doubling down on it. Trent wrestled Eddie's match, comported himself well along those lines, proved his toughness, proved that he belonged, proved that he could stand and fight with the best of them, and absolutely, unquestionable, undoubtedly lost, his nose busted open by the bar that he couldn't make it past, Eddie's chopping hand. One wonders if after the match Eddie might have looked in the mirror and saw in Trent who he had himself so recently been, but the answer is probably no. Eddie's the ace now. He can't look back, only forward, to Wednesday because he wants to keep the defenses coming.

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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 (and Friends): 10/17 - 10/23

AEW Dark 10/18

MD: Eddie was our only guy this week and he was on Dark, so I figured I'd just do the whole show. It's been a little over a year now since I've been watching AEW. One interesting thing about the promotion relative to other ones over the years is that different people from different generations get very different things out of it. Punk and Danielson coming back drew me in. Kingston and Dustin and Darby, among others, kept my interest, but on a week to week basis, it was the webshows that really worked for me. If Dynamite feels like crash TV with original ROH style dream matches, and Rampage feels a bit like late 91-early 92 WCW Saturday Night with a Dangerous Alliance match and a few midcard matches, Elevation and Dark feel like WCW syndi shows. Squashes and a few midcard matches. It's one of those things people of my generational tolerated for years, maybe grumbled about, but ultimately had no idea how good we had it.

In an ecosystem like what I described above, squashes are a amazing, right? Guys like Naylor have been so good at highlighting them and why they were special over the years, but they highlight moves, characters, give the announcers room to breathe. They're not exhausting like sprints can be. They're pro-wrestling comfort food while giving wrestlers the ability to really express who they are. You can tell a story in them or not depending on what you're trying to achieve. All the talk about how wrestlers are wasted not being on TV is irritating, to say the least. The nature of AEW's roster is that people get rotated on and off to keep things fresh. Someone like Ruby Soho coming out to her theme on Elevation gets the fresh and excited crowds going. Emi Sakura is the MVP, having hard-hitting entertaining tag after entertaining tag with partners that can vibe with her act and opponents that are better off for getting reps with her. It's the perfect place for Dalton Castle and Danhausen and Brandon Cutler and the Wingmen, giving the crowd extra value for their ticket and helping to keep acts over. It lets them try out new talent or new tweaks upon a gimmick. I was excited when Deeb, for instance, finished up her title match programs and was interacting with people like Emi and Skye Blue again.

The problem, as much as fans being small-minded, is AEW not doing enough to use the shows to build to everything else going on. There was a patch back six months ago where if someone was going to have a match on Dynamite or Rampage they'd often get featured on Elevation, and they did some things, like building to the ROH PPV with Dark and Elevation, but in general, it's underutilized. I don't know a single person who watches the webshows and feels like they're not valuable or worth watching though, no matter how much griping you get from the people who don't watch (the most worthless griping of all). This was an especially star-studded episode given they were in Canada and it was taped before a live Rampage, but don't sleep on the studio Darks either. Studio wrestling is great given that with AEW we get all sorts of variety. You may not want it as your only wrestling but as part of the whole, it balances things out.

Hikaru Shida vs Vanessa Kraven

MD: I've been giving a lot of thought about 'aces' lately. I think it's due to watching a ton of Inoki over the last year. It could be because I want to watch some Big Daddy and make some calls for myself soon. Don't hold me for that. One aspect that I think is important in an ace is to leverage the cachet you have with the crowd to find ways to highlight what makes your opponent unique. Shida absolutely did that here, making full use of Kraven's size and strength. This was not at all the same sort of match that she would have had with someone smaller or with a different background. Some of that was leaping into the catch on the outside off the chair and eating that samoan drop on the apron (which then, thanks to the AEW house style, she could use later in the match to escape the Samoan drop and set up the finishing stretch). Some of it was the struggle for the falcon arrow, barely getting her over, and then letting her kick out of it. The creativity and imagination and care that went into how she laid this out was definitely appreciated however.

Dark Order (Evil Uno/John Silver/Alex Reynolds/10) vs Tyler Tirva/Shane Hawke/Zak Patterson/Jordano)

MD: Again, we get the freedom of the web shows here. They're not trying to hit any major time marks. They're not worried about picture-in-picture commercial breaks. This was in Canada. This was about showcasing Uno, as well it should have been. It's one of those things AEW does best and that we spent decades getting denied due to weird piques of spite "up north." Though some of this was diluted by Taz poking Jose the Assistant on commentary, but certainly not for the live crowd.

This was surprisingly complete, with Reynolds getting some shine to start (useful given that he plays FIP a lot), a tease of Uno early only for him to get swarmed, some heat on Silver (including eating a huge gutwrench), and everything set up to combine the big Dark Order spots and all of Uno's signature spots mixed with all of his showmanship. They could have just had Dark Order run through these guys but they gave it enough substance to make Uno's spots mean just a little more.

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs Mo Jabari/Jake O'Reilly

MD: Just a stylized mauling. Jabari and O'Reilly might get one shot in but they sure wouldn't get two in a row. Ortiz knows this is his moment to come into his own and showcase his own identity and he's been doing that with the Rick Rude or the crotch chop before the veg-o-matic or the tiger style (which, now that I think about it, may not be his own identity at all). Those crossfaces in the corner were nasty though, and Eddie's chops sounded as good as they ever did. The anger management angle for Kingston made sense in the Sammy match; I'm not sure if it's totally believable moving forward, but the Pac match it seems to be building to should be fun at least.

Best Friends (Orange Cassidy/Chuck Taylor/Trent) vs Kobe Durst/Steven Mainz/Jessie V

MD: This was a straight up crowdpleasing squash on the heels of the Cassidy/PAC main event one day earlier. Occasionally they'll run these where guys can just do whatever and they don't even give the enhancement talent a hope. It was pretty brutal with Trent not quite getting all of the flip into a spinebuster (and he save the same sort of shrug that Silver got when he tried to suplex two guys at once). The Sole Food into the Half and Half looked great though. Cassidy then came in and punched everyone. I'm not sure if it's Keith Mitchell retiring or what but they don't seem to time the hug nearly as well as they used to. Anyway, this was never going to be much but it was fine for what it was.

Ari Davari vs Brandon Cutler

MD: Like I said, people watch AEW for different reasons. There are some people who are thoroughly into the Elite, to the point of having Omega avatars and whatever else. I don't have a ton of time for any of them for reasons no one needs to hear right now, but I do think Cutler's been one of the bright spots of the company over the last month. He's a guy who throws himself entirely in the act, who's unafraid to do anything necessary. He cares so much that the fans care, and as the only bastion of the Elite remaining, they care just a little bit more. You put him up against a guy like Avalon (like we'll see this week) or Danhausen or Serpentico and you get a fun comedy match, but if you put him against an actual wrestler like Davari, and you get a kind of interesting, contrast-laden match, where he can work from underneath. Here, Davari threw a lot of simple, driving shots, credible stuff that put over his annoyance of the entire situation. Cutler would comeback with fun 80s offense but Davari would cut him off by going for the eyes or with Kiss' help or through something just as conniving that sort of defies hierarchy and highlights how offended he is that he has to lower himself to wrestle Cutler. It made for a pretty fun match. I would have rather Hook had to go through all of the Trustbusters first before getting Davari, though part of that was just beacuse I wanted to see Hook vs Slim J (who is the new 5th finger if Punk isn't coming back, by the way).

Willow Nightingale vs Seleziya Sparx

MD: In a lot of ways this was an inversion of the Shida match. Willow still wanted to give some shine to the local, even if she was working heel, but she made her work for it and chip away, not going down easily, leaning hard into her size. It's hard for a babyface with a size advantage to know just how much to give while still showing the right amount of vulnerability, especially given the hierarchical difference here, but I think she nailed it. Willow has great emotive reactions in her selling, able to switch between ebullience, exhaustion, and aggression. All of Sparx' stuff looked pretty good, even some of the overwrought things like how she vaulted over the turnbuckle to hit a running kick. That's the sort of thing that is maybe a bit much but you can't fault it if the kick looks good. Jody Threat got a lot of attention last week, but Sparx should get some as well.

QT Marshall vs Dante Martin

MD: A year ago, when I first encountered him, I thought QT should wrestle more like a manager. He's capable of a lot of things (including missing a 450) but just because he can, doesn't necessarily mean he should. That said, for a lot of this period, AEW's needed credible mid-card heels to eat losses. Having the Trustbusters now help a little bit, but that's really been the Factory and the Wingmen, and Lethal, and as such, it does make sense for QT to stretch his wings a bit more. He's good at it and especially good at engaging with his opponent and the audience. They were all over him, despite having sat through all of the previous matches and even if no one necessarily bought a ticket for him, they all had a seemingly great time getting on his case and it'll be, consciously or subconsciously, part of their enduring good feeling about the night in the months and years to come.
 
Dante, in the meantime, probably through no choice of his own as he'd rather be teaming with his brother, has had a lot of ring time to improve. I thought he was already pretty far along in the singles match with Black last October, but his expressiveness and interactions with the crowd have developed since then. He's a great seller on top of his ability to seemingly freeze time as he flips around the ring and soars through the air. He's a case where the sum is greater than any specific part, as his flipping rana into the ring here would be the most spectacular thing in almost any other match in the world but felt almost subdued alongside his huge dive to the outside and stuttering splash to avoid the cutter. The finishing stretch worked to protect QT in loss but still felt like an accomplishment for Dante. Definitely the sort of match that Dusty would have been proud to call the Moo Match of the Week on WCW Prime in 1995 even if maybe it wouldn't make a comp tape for the year.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 4/4-4/10

AEW Dynamite 4/6

Bryan Danielson vs. Trent Beretta

MD: I'm fairly certain that this is going to get lost in the cracks when Danielson's year is discussed, let alone his entire run. It was lost in the cracks for the night given the emotion and spectacle of the Mox vs Yuta match. It was good though even if I can't say that the commentary team being so big wasn't a little distracting at times. It was probably a small favor that Jericho wasn't there too. Everyone came off as a little awed by Regal, even Taz.

As for the match itself, there was a lot to like. Storyline-wise, there was animosity as Danielson had more or less besmirched Trent's unit, even if it was all indirect and even if Regal obviously expressed admiration for Trent through commentary. You get the sense that while Trent wanted to prove that they could hang and had a chip on his shoulder because of the entire situation, the fact that he didn't want Yuta in the Best Friends in the first place sent things just a little askew. Danielson vs Chuck would have been more straightforward. The crows was split but more for Trent given Danielson's heeling. 

The early feeling out process was effective, Trent matching Danielson, building each able to counter the other's dive. While the neck became something of a focal point after Trent crashed and burned into the steps, it was more to help explain why Trent's comebacks were cut off (as he had to sell after the Superplex or German, for instance). Danielson worked in a couple of moments of focus, like the dragon sleeper or capture belly-to-back, but he wasn't overly discriminating in how he hurt Trent. When they hit one another, they hit hard. Trent had more behind his stuff than Yuta would have later in the night, and he portrayed fire subtly but effectively with a thousand-yard stare. They teased and paid off both the tornado DDT and gotch-style pile driver, with the former really cementing Trent's comeback and latter being an exclamation point after the knee. Danielson switching things up on the LeBell lock to tweak the neck had more symbolic than visual value as it didn't look particularly more effective, but that's the joy of selling something different. The crowd and announcers went up for it, so it worked.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/4/20

 What Worked

-The strong AEW tag opener is becoming a decent staple for them and has a higher than average success rate. This was worked around an extended Sammy Guevara hot tag and some really cool understated arm work on Ortiz, with MJF continuing to show that he's way more interesting working the little things into his matches than when he's just working "big reaction wrestling". He had a lot of subtle ways he would work Ortiz's arm, no big hammy arm attacks, just cool things like bending and trapping his wrist in painful ways while tagging in Wardlow. I didn't even know it would turn into an arm work match because he wasn't acting like it was a specific attack, and instead was just using it as a smart way to neutralize an opponent. Wardlow had nice little moments too, like the way he leaned into Sammy's big leaping hot tag knees or the way he delivered a nasty forearm to the back of Sammy's head to break up a pin. MJF and Wardlow are still bad at catching dives, both missing Sammy on consecutive flip dives (although Sammy was running through things so fast that it was genuinely difficult to tell where his landing spot would be, so plenty of people could have missed these), and Sammy figures out how to work around MJF's weak catching skills by later hitting a huge 450 lariat to the floor, and the lariat landing looked great. 

-I still don't understand any step of the Young Bucks/FTR build, but I liked the Bucks/Private Party tag. Private Party should be used as a team that has a couple nice spots before getting run the hell over, and that's what happened here. I enjoyed the way Matt worked in his tweaked knee (you know except they are heels and a heel working an injury in a match literally ALWAYS leads to crowd confusion), loved how Nick Jackson hit a superkick that stayed glued to the side of Marq Quen's face, and the BTE knee comes off - to me - like a way better finisher than the stupid years long setup Meltzer Driver. Confusion about the tag title build below. 

-Eddie Kingston. Live mic. Building the title match that he is in. Is there a safer bet in pro wrestling history? Incredibly, I thought Moxley brought just as much to this as Moxley. Eddie was going to bring the color, the emotion, and the emotional body language, but Moxley got under his skin without resorting to cheapness. Moxley bringing up King's mother was a great move, as it wasn't Moxley taking a cheap shot to trap Kingston into touching him, it was Moxley using a cruel weapon: a mother's disappointment. I've heard more than enough about Eddie Kingston's mother (how many times has Kingston sworn on "his beautiful mother's eyes"?) to know how big a deal it was for Mox to bring her up, and I loved this segment. Cannot wait for this match. 

-Butcher and the Blade backstage beatdown on Dustin/QT looked great, not many ways to build much more excitement for a match in 10 seconds than they did here. Butcher handled that cane like a samurai sword. 

What Didn't Work

-Not buying Miro as a singles guy at this point but I can't really blame them for trying. He had something at one point, and the jury is still out on whether he still has that something. The parts of this that worked felt like they worked because of Trent crashing when he was supposed to crash. I can't actually say that Miro looked good, although I would have thought he looked good if this was his second year. But he still comes off like a green monster who needs big bumpers. The finish looked great, as I loved a blown spot (intentional or no) leading to a finish, and Trent made his rope slip look really good, right before eating a big kick. I have zero insight into the popularity of gamer streams, so for all I know Miro the Twitch Streamer might be the biggest wrestling star by 2021. I'm not seeing it though. 

-So can someone explain FTR/Young Bucks to me? Young Bucks have been heels for over a month, but now FTR attacks them with their backs turned and Matt Jackson is going into the title match with a knee injury? I think the match has potential to be pretty great, and I think it can work great with either face Bucks/heel FTR OR heel Bucks/face FTR. But both teams as heels? Both teams as babyfaces who get cheered by acting like heels? Workrate faces who are just playing heels? None of that shit works and will tank a potentially good match. 

-I should be into Nyla Rosa squashes, but I am not. Something is missing. I always end up liking her opponent more in her squash matches, as it always feels like they are more responsible for whether her segments are a success or not. Red Velvet had a cool leg splits corner choke, and got driven super hard into the mat on a delayed sitout powerbomb. Again, Nyla's matches always just make me want to see more of the person being squashes. Also, Nyla's strikes over the guardrail on Shida post match, the final shots that are to lead into their big title match, looked incredibly bad so...

-I wasn't feeling Billy Gunn's kid so I opted to stop watching Dynamite tonight and watch 1993 Raw instead, which happened to feature Billy Gunn. Then I wondered how many guys in 1993 WWF are still wrestling as frequently as Billy Gunn in 2020 and...I guess PCO? Probably just PCO? 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/14/20

 What Worked

-Opening tag had a strong first half and then started to drag once they involved Kip Sabian and their ringside game cabinet and around then it started feeling like they were just filling time. Probably didn't need to go 15+ with this one. But I liked it a lot through Taylor's hot tag. Trent is good at taking a beating, eating suplexes (loved Wheeler's high backdrop and Harwood's faster lower angle Saito suplex) and I liked the way they tangled him up when making quick tags. Wheeler was working hard at this one, keeping pace with Trent while administering the beating, and my man then carries Trent's corpse all the way back to the ring from the gaming cabinet crash, blowing himself up worse than that cabinet got blown up. Taylor's hot tag was good, with big lariats sending both to the floor (both FTR had some nice bumps to the floor in this one) and then a wild tope con hilo that wipes out both of FTR. FTR were good at feeding into Trent and Taylor's offense, even stuff that can look bad like the sole food/50-50 combo, Harwood flew right into. 

-It is extremely fitting that Kip Sabian's nickname is "Super Bad". 

-Loved my man Sean Maluta getting his ass absolutely TOSSED around ringside, just throwing that body into guardrails. I dug him in Evolve teaming with Colby Corino and Eddie Kingston, and now that he's made Lance Archer and Miro look strong on Dynamite, hopefully they can find something more for him to do. 

-That Expos Vlad throwback Kingston was rocking was so sick. Expos gear is doubtlessly the coolest MLB gear. Gimme Kingston on commentary (and in the ring) more often, and gimme Kingston pointing out that he never tapped to the bully choke. 

What Didn't Work

-Miro yelling GAME OVER!! and then whiffing on Maluta's jaw for his camel clutch made me laugh, but I don't think he was going for yuks. 

-A couple of the gags worked well in the Jericho/MJF segment, but I'm not really a fan of building main event stories with this kind of overly planned comedic back and forth. It's funny when Britt Baker tosses Tony Schiavone a hand towel to cover up his balls during her promo at the spa, but Jericho and MJF working "So I'm saying that you're saying that if I'm saying""No what I'm saying is that you're saying what I'm saying" kinda stuff just goes nowhere with me. Honestly Jericho should have absolutely sicced his goons on MJF the second he brought up his hair (also Jericho is 50, it's not really "premature balding" if a dude is 50. The guy I went to high school with who had a horseshoe at age 18, THAT'S premature balding), or at least recommend he gets that neck freckle checked out right quick. MJF's Boy Meets World bully shtick just does not work for me in main event programs. 

-Cody/Cassidy came off as the weakest of the Cassidy prestige matches, and was one of Cody's weakest AEW singles matches (by memory only the Warhorse match came off weaker to me). It was really slow paced but never earned that pace, coming off flat instead of as "intense drama". Orange looked really small against Cody and a lot of his offense didn't look like it would crack an egg. The standing strike exchange was not good and I have no idea what those Cassidy chest palm strikes were supposed to accomplish. The slow pace really worked against the match and putting a beach break on the apron and in the ring so close together made Cassidy look even worse that they didn't finish Cody. The tornado DDT spot was nice, and Cassidy's dive was fine, but that time limit draw coming at the 2 count came off way too prepared and I don't think the match earned any of the solemnity they wanted to push at the finish. This whole thing came off like two guys working through injuries while trying to cover their injuries. 

-They kept calling Shida/Swole hard fought, and it kind of was, but the hardest fight was the timing of all the exchanges. Shida matches always have wonky timing moments, where either she gets off time or she throws her opponent off, and those happened throughout. You watch a match like this and see all of the ways it could have been improved and tidied up just by keeping things simple. Whenever they went into a more complicated strike exchange that required someone to be in a specific spot, that's when you got knee strikes that missed or a rolling elbow that had to be stopped mid roll. When they were just working headlock exchanges off Irish whips or knocking each other off the turnbuckle it played much better. Shida has undeniable charisma but the in ring has a long way to go. The same could be said about Swole, but she was the one getting more of her sequences thrown off tonight. There was a good match here somewhere, but too many little blunders. 

-I cannot believe they're still trying to make Tye Dillinger a thing. 

-Moxley/Archer felt the exact same level of sluggish as the Cassidy/Cody match earlier, and it had a similar layout with surprise kickouts of finishers that get immediately shrugged off because the next spot had to happen. Archer is such a goof. When he's wrecking jobbers in ring or in locker room he's nothing but screaming and flexing and at least comes off destructive. Here he works this methodical match that I think is supposed to make it seem like he's a monster with gravitas, but the match just comes off draggy and lame. I liked Moxley hitting dirty deeds to start the match, and the match would have been way more interesting had that just been the entire match. I thought this was a real dry match with the announce team trying to convince us it was a big time main event. Just like Cassidy hit the beach break on the apron and in the ring earlier, here Moxley hits dirty deeds off the apron through a table, and not long after hits it in the ring only for Archer to kick out. Moxley locks in the bully choke and Archer merely stands up and goes to the corner for the next spot. Whenever a match is laid out where a finisher is kicked out of to supposedly dramatic effect, only for the guy who took the finisher to be up and active literal seconds later, you know you're trapped in some bullshit. Kingston confronting Moxley after the match was infinitely better than anything in the match proper. 

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: AEW Parking Lot Brawl

Santana/Ortiz vs. Trent/Chuck Taylor AEW Dynamite 9/16

ER: 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. There is a Chuck Taylor match on one of our MOTY Lists.

PAS: This was inexplicably great. I mean Santana and Ortiz are from the JAPW family tree so it shouldn't be shocking that they can be in an awesome parking lot brawl like this, but I have no time for Chuck Taylor and Chuck Taylor associated things, but I have to give the devils their due. Santana and Ortiz were incredibly in this, the whole build for this feud was winking horseshit about Mom's and Mini Vans, but Santana and Ortiz came into this like a pair of serial killers, and forced Trent and Taylor to fight for their lives. There was a couple of moments where the Best Friends tried some indy wrestling shit (Chuck Taylor started throwing bad forearms, Trent tries for a spinning counter DDT) but for 95% of this we were fighting. The big bumps were big and all of the smaller things also looked great. Trent gets totally demolished, that windshield bump was some Miedo Extremo shit, and who thought he had that in him. Didn't need Orange Cassidy, and would have rather seen a straight up finish, but dang this was something.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 8/27/20

What Worked

-Gauntlet matches are always kind of hard to write about, just because sometimes I love individual matches within a gauntlet, but you really have to talk about them as an entire segment. Overall, I think this match worked. It feels light to have only 4 teams in a gauntlet, and I have no idea how the order of entrants was chosen. Dustin/QT vs. the Bucks was solid, and any show that opens with Dustin (and, honestly, QT) is a good one. They work well together as a team, and I like QT as the Clear Weak Link in any match he's in. Dustin bumps generously for the Bucks (Dustin taking a huge hiptoss bump looked like me taking a hip toss from a 5 year old) and gets to show off as the fastest guy in the match, but also the strongest guy in the match (love that whipping powerslam). The double superkick after QT missed his silly handspring to nothing was timed really great. Bucks vs. Best Friends was better than anticipated, and it played as an extended run of Bucks offense (which is better than an extended run of Chuck Taylor offense). Trent eating a nice superkick and German suplex 1-2 on the apron looked good. The Hangman Page interference finish was weird and I don't want to have to follow these guys on social media or watch their different web shows to see why good buddies might be cranky with each other, but it came off stupid. FTR have underdelivered in AEW so far, and JR's commentary during their matches is unbearable. He always acts like he's saying something profound when he says "you know these guys remind me of an old school tag team" as if that hasn't been their one gimmick for the past 5 years. "You know, Kenny Omega always reminds me of some weeb geek who tugs it to anime." Yeah, no shit. But Cash hits a great snap vertical suplex on the floor to take out Trent, and Dax takes out Chuck's knee, so I am totally fine with this.

-Lance Archer would still be WAY more interesting if he was just limited to backstage assaults on nameless ring boys, but Sean Maluta really made the most of his squash debut and got big height on his bumps. Loved how Maluta flew on suplexes, and the height he got on the chokeslam put this up here.

-I don't know who did it, but I loved the GASP on commentary when MJF brought up Jon Moxley's hairline.

-8 man tag was fine, with the negatives talked about down below. Sonny Kiss looked really good, and as I pointed out after his less than stellar performance against Cody (which JR naturally deems AMAZING), he is a guy who really excels in frantic multiman tags. His stuff with Fenix was really electric (Fenix's rope work that lead to him getting knocked off, hanging his knee over the rope, looked real close to an injury), and I love the way Kiss darted around Butcher and Blade. The scouted  Matrix feint into a powerslam was a cool spot from Blade. Janela had a nice performance too, another guy who is improved just be being in a trios or 8 man. I liked the comedy gag he worked during picture in picture, taking leg kicks from Pentagon, no selling them, before collapsing in pain. He took a couple gnarly bumps, and his big bumps feel like a bigger part of the whole in a match like this (compared to his singles matches which have too many big bumps). Good match, would have rather seen Kingston wrestle than any of them.

-The Hardy/Sammy tables match ruled, and it's a real shame that it was somehow cut into by commercials. It's incredible how week after week they always manage to cut to commercials during actual big moments. I would have liked some more time in this match, felt like they ramped up to the kills pretty quickly. But at the same time I appreciated how they actually acknowledged within a match that going through a table is the only way to win, so they might as well go for that right away. It's a common stupid thing in wrestling to have a stipulation match where the participants work the first 5-10 minutes as if it were a normal match. Guys working armdrags in a first blood match, things immediately not breaking down in a no DQ match, it happens constantly. These men knew they had to put the other threw a damn table, and it was great. Sammy gets busted open, and they smartly take a couple of sick bumps through tables in ways that don't count. Sammy gets busted open (still nothing like that juice he got out of Hardy a couple weeks ago), flies through a table with a missed tope con hilo, Hardy misses an elbow through the table in painful fashion, Sammy gets stuck with a side effect on the apron, Hardy did a disgusting twist of fate while Sammy was wearing a chair around his neck, all of it looked great. This was a quick, violent, satisfyingly economical match.


What Didn't Work

-The commentary - JR in particular - always goes way over the top with comparisons, here comparing Lance Archer to Stan Hansen. JR is always the kid who cheats his way to an A+, not just staying out of sight with a B-. He always has to compare someone to the absolute best in wrestling history, and then you look up and see Archer hitting a so-so back elbow with his goober ass Burning Man braids flapping in the wind and it only makes me want to see Stan Hansen beat the shit out of him. Jericho fantasy books a 2020 Archer vs. 1976 Hansen match, and I wonder if Jericho has even seen 5 matches of 1976 Stan Hansen. What an odd year to pick for the guy.

-The balance is all off with MJF's promos. He's too smug to be stupid, but too stupid to know the right notes to hit. There's way too much school play villain and not enough believable villainy. He doesn't sound like he can think on his feet, as he never has a follow up when his opponent responds to one of his planned lines. I am genuinely curious what MJF has learned from watching Ernie Ladd tapes though, because that's not an inspiration that would have crossed my mind.

-Is Eddie Kingston the FIFTH MAN in a stable of Lucha Bros. and Butcher/Blade?? Seriously? Why sign Eddie Kingston so he can sit on the bench with a towel? He's not Jud Buechler. Plus, it's additionally stupid to have Kingston as the ringside mouthpiece, and then throw most of the match to picture in picture so we can't even hear Eddie Kingston. They constantly have wrestlers sit in on commentary, and Kingston would CRUSH commentary during these matches. It's like they signed him based on reasons that they immediately forgot. The wrestling in the 8 man was good enough, but you know what would have made it better? Eddie Kingston replacing literally anybody in the match.

-What happened here? Is Rebel/Reba supposed to be working a "not an actual wrestler, completely untrained to be in the ring" gimmick? Because she certainly convinced me. I can't remember the last time I've seen someone stumble around the ring that much, just getting in the way of absolutely everything. I can't blame Ford for much of this, even when she didn't look great, because it was always due to Rebal bumbling in where she didn't belong. Britt is a bright spot in AEW, and she could not save this.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 8/5/20

What Worked

-AEW has somehow had a poor success rate with big multiman matches. I think a multiman tag with 8+ people should be pretty much a slam dunk good match. You can hide anybody you want and can work at a great pace with frequent tags. But for some reason AEW multimans just have not clicked. The opener tonight clicked. There was stuff I didn't like (I really dislike whenever a big match like this focuses on a spot that involves half or more of the participants, like an 8 man suplex or the silly 3 way spinning toe hold that ended with them all knocking heads), but much more stuff that I thought worked really well. The energy throughout was good, and I especially liked Evil Uno. He's a guy who worked countless multimans like this, so you get a sense he knew right where to be. His chain spots didn't require anyone to wait awkwardly, he took the snap dragon real well, set up double teams great (loved his sit out powerbomb), and hit that nice cannonball under Grayson's 450. Both Bucks knew how to pick their moments and Matt had some great stuff running through a bunch of guys on the floor before getting leveled by a Brodie Lee superkick. Lee also had a cool double lariat and wrecked Kenny with one on the apron (painful bump from Omega), and this was maybe the best Lee has looked in AEW. The important thing here was that everyone was pretty good about choosing their moments, and many worked in smart spots to get out of the action. Grayson flew past the ringpost to the floor and took a big apron bump, Dax Harwood left the match after doing a nasty gutbuster on his bad knee (I do not know if the injury is real, but I hope it is not. He sold it convincingly enough that it looked legit), and that lead to a really great Page comeback when he rejoined the match after taking Harwood to the back. This wasn't bogged down in any way with that comedy that tends to drag these AEW matches down, and that tight pacing kept this real strong throughout.

-Really enjoyed LAX vs. Best Friends, with things really picking up when Trent took a nasty bump on the edge of the apron, getting his legs yanked out from under him. The LAX control segment was really good, thought Santana looked really good in there. They had a real nice double team suplex, and Trent is at his best selling and bumping around. Now, the structure meant that we were building to a Chuck Taylor hot tag the whole time, which was the weakest part of the match (and I did really like his Sliced Bread, thought it looked much better than his various drivers that always see him getting into position too early). He moved through his offense quick, which looked a bit too planned (compared to how the rest of the match looked), but the home stretch had a couple of big double teams and a decent nearfall. It didn't have the result that I wanted, but I can't argue with how we got there.

-Sammy/Hardy brawl was good, Guevara looked like a real maniac. His punches were thrown with the body language of a man trying to injure someone with punches. This wasn't a set of clean punch exchanges, this was a guy jumping someone. He threw an opened chair right into Hardy's face which felt like a crazy moment in an Ian Rotten match, not something that Matt Hardy would take on TV. The twisting dive through a table was sweet icing, but Hardy's deep red gusher was all the cherry we needed on this sundae. Sick blade job, made me wonder how the hell they would top any of that in an actual match, and made me excited to see themselves top it.

-How cool was it that Ortiz javelined that sledgehammer into the windshield to end the segment? That's the kind of one take that would have made me flip out the moment the scene was cut. "You see it stick in the windshield!? Try to defeat me now, God!"

-Wasn't feeling the Cody/Cardona tag, but Reynolds and Silver won me over during the nice, long control segment over Cody. Early stuff felt a little too indy, Cody didn't totally look like he touched the ringpost in the spot where he was supposed to, but he committed to the selling enough that I eventually bought in. Silver is a shrimp but works well with his size. Silver makes up the difference by throwing hard kicks. He is a better thigh slapper than most, really hitting the mark on some very fast timing, but really his kicks look good enough that he really doesn't need the slap. His kicks to a kneeling Cody were what really got me into this. He has good aim and came in with kicks to break up pins to show more of that good timing. But while his kicks look powerful, he is still small, and I like that someone like Cody was able to just power through with a cool powerslam in spite of the damage. Cardona didn't do a ton for me (and it's hilarious that JR was talking about his big action figure collection as something that would presumably get him over) but everyone else made this work.

-I didn't actually expect the Jericho/Cassidy program to have legs. I keep finding myself surprised with every segment. They're drawing it out really well and, not worrying about making each segment more intense than the last, just convincingly pairing them off the right amount each week. I'm not sure they can top their match, but they're doing a really good job keeping it interesting.

8. Darby Allin vs. Jon Moxley

ER: I thought this was great. Unhinged Darby performances are the most consistently high end part of Dynamite since the beginning. Moxley can be a little goofy, but he can also bleed and dish a stiff beating on Allin while Allin finds a dozen different ways to crash his own body. Moxley goes right after him to start but soon Darby is crashing the way he does best, including a brutal run into the ringpost. He dies on a couple of topes, and is one of the best in wrestling at making topes look like devastating offense. He finds great ways to stay just ahead of Moxley, and the match keeps getting hotter because of it. I dug how he set up his Code Red by kicking out Moxley's knee, and I loved how he stomped all over Moxley's hand in the ringpost before coffin dropping to the floor, landing on Moxley's same hand. There is some MJF interference, but they don't let it define the match, and don't let it be the cause of the finish. What it does do, is give Moxley a great chance to blade. Matt Hardy still had the juice of the night, but Moxley's adds to this fight. I liked Darby capitalizing and was actually shocked when the coffin drop wasn't the finish, and shocked again when Darby refused to stay down after a Gotch piledriver. I wasn't expecting the match to go big match epic on me and I enjoyed that twist. The implant DDT that kept Allin down looked sick and should keep someone down. Darby is must see TV, and matches like this one make that an obvious statement.

PAS: This was really great stuff, I didn't care for either of their first two matches against each other, but this was great. Darby might be the single best wrestler in the world at structuring an underdog match, and maybe one of the best ever at it. He is actually taking less insane bumps now than he was in the indies, but the one crazy bump he took was totally awesome looking and perfectly placed. All of Darby's offense is that rare mix of flawlessly smooth and really violent looking. You can get one or the other, rarely do you get both. Eric is right about his topes, they are the most violent dives in wrestling, and really maybe the most violent since Ciclon Ramirez. There was no need for the MJF stuff, and it would help Darby more if he got his near fall due to his own actions, but it is a minor quibble. I do think they are getting a little Lucy with the Football on Darby's big win, and they really need to pull the trigger soon.


What Didn't Work

-It feels cheap putting Swole/Reba here, since Reba is hardly a wrestler and the match was designed to be a Swole demolition. It wasn't meant to be great, and it wasn't. But it wasn't bad, and they gave the whole segment the right amount of time. The rest of the show is all up top! I feel like a real heel putting this here. The show does need segments that aren't just workrate match after workrate match, but it probably would have worked much better in between the opener and the Inner Circle tag. Also, it is a bizarre choice that amid all the "put more women on TV" talk, they put women on TV for a total of 3 minutes.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 7/1/20

What Worked

-Cody/Hager was a real good mildly overbooked big match, where all of Cody's comebacks felt natural to the match even while Hager took probably 70% of it. Hager works like a punishing lummox, and while some his stuff looks slow he makes up for it with some inspired moments. I loved Hager breaking the figure 4 by just slamming the side of Cody's head into the mat, and Arn taking a bullet was worth it to see Hager drop Cody with a German on the floor. I dig when a bully heel just throws people to the floor, and I thought they did a cool job of Hager tossing Cody to the floor multiple times and making Cody find new ways to get in without getting smashed. Cody's comebacks were strong and fit well within what they were working, dug his nice powerslam after stopping short, and I fully bought into Hager actually pulling out a convincing win. You can tell Cody is a guy who likes coming up with finishes, and while some of them get a little cute, this one definitely worked. I thought for sure Hager was muscling him over into a guillotine, and Cody standing with a wide bridge for the pin worked real well for me. Strong.

-Main event tag worked well enough, and I appreciate that it was mostly subdued and not treated in any way like a Big Omega Epic. Parts of this were messy but I like the direction they built things and felt they kept within the match they were actually working. Taylor always dips out of a match structure to go ham, and that wasn't a problem here. I'm still laughing about JR calling him a beanpole last week. He's clearly the largest guy in this match. He always overshoots his tope con hilo, but his short piledriver looked really good. Trent had a nice aggression here, and I liked the pace he kept throughout, and the way he leaned into a few nasty shots. The ugliest (in a great way) was Omega's missile dropkick to the back of Trent's neck. Omega looked like he was trying to sever Trent's spinal column and that is something that will snap me to attention in a main event. We had a couple good nearfalls down the stretch, and Trent really died to make Page look good, so this lands up here.


What Didn't Work

-Opening tag just was not it. Tons of bumps felt disconnected from the actual moves people were taking (Jungle Boy sold getting thrown into the ringpost like Rock taking a Stunner) and the Luchasaurus hot tag was ug-lee. All of his stupid off timing stutter step kicks look bad, they never land clean, they look slow, and the extra spins and flourishes just look silly. Wardlow cannot catch a dive and Excalibur at least did a great job saving that by saying Wardlow was trying to get out of the way. MJF on the other hand made Jungle Boy's topes look really good, throwing himself back into the guardrail a couple times before getting flattened by a tope con hilo. Every spot revolving around Luchasaurus either lands too light or requires guys to do things they wouldn't normally be doing (he has three different pieces off offense that require MJF just running at him and jumping). The commentary made this match sound a lot better than it really was, so hats off to Jericho and Excalibur for shining this shit.

-Shida/Ford had some ideas and some good energy, but a lot of this was ROUGH. Ford has made noticeable improvements but still has some major weaknesses clash with Shida's weaknesses. Shida is bad at standing and throwing (yet always does it) and Ford is bad at selling on her feet. So you have Shida making ugly non-contact on strikes, and Ford standing there taking strikes she doesn't quite know how to sell, and it derails a lot of this. The small surprises were nice, like Ford's big pump kick, there was smart camera work to cover up certain spots (it's important to know your workers' weaknesses, and there were at least three moments where cameras cut to a super favorable angle in anticipation of a spot), and there were a couple of strong nearfalls. This threatened a couple of times to make it onto the top side of this review, but Kip Sabian cemented it down here for good. Sabian was involved in one spot, and it managed to be the worst spot of the match. Shida caught him sneaking in with a kendo stick, threw a bad strike at him, Sabian paused.....then just threw the kendo stick straight up into the air. There were so many different ways you could have sold a strike and still allowed Shida to get the stick. But this clown just throws a stick in the air in a way no other person would. Is there anything at all this guy does right?

-Private Party took me way out of that tag match. Opponents always feel a little dragged down by them. They don't take offense interestingly because they sell every move as if it has the exact same effect. Doesn't matter how nasty or how simple a move looks, they sell it the same, especially Quen. Their offense is athletic but sloppy, dives always going off kilter, and I hate how everyone has to specifically have a Private Party match. It's a bad structure, and this would have benefitted way more from Santana and Ortiz working like Arn and Bobby, instead of working like a different Private Party.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 6/10/20

What Worked

-Good debut for FTR, which my reptile brain just realized probably stands for Formerly the Revival. They could gain some notoriety if they cut a promo saying it stood for Fuck the Racists. I would like it to be Friendship to Remember, and in WWE it probably would have stood for Foreign to Raw. Also, I genuinely had no idea that their WWE names were like Fire Pro versions of their actual names. And really, their actual names sound like the Fire Pro versions. But this was a good tag that didn't go above and beyond, played as a decent showcase without being any kind of walk in the park. This was the Just a Taste and that's fine for a debut, although after complaining about not being able to let loose in tags it was a little odd seeing them have a tag that wouldn't have been in the top half of their WWE syndicated matches. I liked Blade's extra kickout on the Cash elbowdrop, liked that we got a little late match twist.  

-Feels good putting the women's tag up here, and it's crazy to think that it lands up here because of Penelope Ford. This was easily her best AEW performance, and the best performance I've seen from her period. I thought the layout was a little wonky, and Shida is still a problem, but a good Ford performance really elevated some of Shida's offense. It also helped that they didn't throw out another 4 way. Tag matches are just going to be more satisfying that a messy 4 way. Ford really started opening my eyes when she pinballed off a Shida missile dropkick (with Ford stumbling around decently before the bump, as Shida naturally made her wait way too long before hitting the dropkick), but she made every piece of offense look good here, and played a late match nearfall for max effectiveness. Statlander probably also had her best AEW showing, with only weak elbows to break a Nyla fireman's carry the only thing that looked off. The timing on her late match tope to Kip Sabian was strong. I thought the set up on Nyla's double knee was preposterous, and as much as I think Shida stinks, I'm not sure a wrestler in history could have stood on the bottom rope waiting to be hit as long as she did and still make it work. Nyla hung her on those ropes for an eternity and I think only Terry Funk would have had a chance of not looking like a complete idiot standing on that rope for so long. Terry's rope flopping game is strong, he has the best chance. Curious how Finlay would have handled it. However, the payoff looked great, Shida and Statlander flipping and crashing in unison off the big kneedrop. Of course, Shida is up and running around moments after selling this devastating move, so guess it wasn't that painful after all and definitely not worth the wait. But overall? A strong Penelope Ford performance got us up top.

-Ortiz and Santana go up here, most of the rest of the trios is down below. Santana and Ortiz had a real nice standout tag team match in the middle of several middling or non-existent performances. Ortiz stomping the hell out of Taylor in the corner really made this feel more violent than it had up to that point, they really played into Cassidy's big run, their beatdowns looked really good, and Ortiz's cannonball down the stretch looked super high impact. These two looked like the best team in AEW here, and just give me 15 minutes of them vs. Free the Raccoons.

-Guevara/Colt goes up here, even though it wasn't really bad or good. It had more things that I liked than disliked. I mostly liked Guevara's cool as hell wild dive, and the fact that he saves all of his bullshit for the picture in picture. Doing a bunch of rope running and Fargo strutting and chinlocks while most of my screen is showing cat food commercials? That's great. Plenty of this didn't really move the needle, but Sammy entertains me. 

What Didn't Work

-The second AEW started, a smoke detector started beeping in my house. You know, that kind of beeping that you can't actually locate and sounds the exact same volume no matter where you're standing in the house. I'm not saying that is the fault of AEW Dynamite, but I know for a fact that it didn't beep this entire week *until* AEW Dynamite. It's a small sample, but it's a sample that doesn't favor Dynamite. 

-Young Bucks came off like real dweebs after the FTR match, and a feud started over a "you didn't introduce yourself" angle plays real lame in 2020. If they want YB to be the heels of the feud, couldn't they have just come out and kicked their ass or something?

-Several guys held back that trios match. Trent looked real bad, his timing off the entire match. Hager looked like a stumbly dork, even though I liked a couple of his slams. Cassidy looked fine but I have a feeling he would have looked much less so without Santana and Ortiz bumping and getting perfectly into position with everything he did. Still, his dive was good and his part of the match was exactly what it should have been. Plus, he got beat with a sack of oranges and that should be enough to put his performance topside.

-Could not get into the long Marq Quen singles match. Private Party don't really do it for me in general, and Cody main events against guys who shouldn't be having 8+ minute singles matches are just going to need Cody blood. I liked how Cody paid off the knee work well enough, but this could have been snipped in half.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 4/8/20

What Worked

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

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

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

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

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


What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 3/18/20

What Worked

-Rey Fenix definitely worked, that's for sure. That opening tag was a one man show and Fenix didn't seem affected in the least by the lack of crowd, and was working as fast and hard as ever. All of his kicks and his knife edge chops sang in that empty arena, and I loved how he was using eyepokes or other cheap shots to set up actual hard kicks. Fenix was in twice as much of this match as Pentagon, which is a good balance for their tags, and they really made this work. Fenix is a guy who bumps so explosively that he actually makes Chuck Taylor shoulderblocks look good. I even liked Orange Cassidy's pocket hands coffin drop off the stage, but perhaps they should leave the coffin drop as Darby's things. You don't need a second guy doing stupid trust falls off of high landings.

-Brodie Lee is good at talking and this felt like the first time I heard Brodie Lee talk in maybe 5 years. I think I dig this Dark Order nonsense more than most, though.

-Lance Archer feature was the coolest possible package for a wrestler I don't care about. Archer just leaving a pile of yarders laying in the woods while Jake the Snake sits in a busted wicker chair with his weird hair, watching Archer chop and kick guys like it was his fetish. That's a good idea for a feature.

-Sammy Guevara continues to rule, as I'm not sure how many other guys could have made me laugh just by singing Jericho's theme song.

-Really liked Ortiz's performance in the main event, really felt like he was the guy bumping for everything, falling off the apron, taking Cody's dive, doing all the pratfalls needed in a match like this. It felt like he was in the Sammy Guevara role since Guevara was at ringside. Page and Cody looked like they were working this about 3/4 speed, and he made all of their attacks look they had actual snap. I also liked Hager as the team wrecking ball, and I really got into it as Inner Circle was cutting off Cody. The energy was good, and I can imagine it isn't the easiest thing to keep energy up without a crowd.


What Didn't Work

-The over serious delivery of the Elite sure sounds a lot sillier without an arena of fans fawning all over them no matter what they say. If they're going out there to show off their stage drama chops at least give me their take on a performance of Our Town.

-JR pointed out before the tag match that Trent had the tightest bandana ever, as he'd never seen it budged. And that just made me obsessively watch how often that goofball adjusts that stupid bandana immediately following any bit of offense he took. Watching him get KO'd by a double superkick, but then lie there on the mat carefully adjusting his hair and bandana, is now something I'm going to be watching for every time. JR just outed his game.

-Has there been an AEW women's match without a major blown spot yet? As in, a spot blown so badly that commentary just has to go "Nope, she didn't get that, not a bit". I can't think of one. But I did like enough moments in the women's match, and they kept the pace moving. Statlander hits the best elbow strike of the match on the interfering Kip Sabian. I'm not actually sure what Ford's elbow strikes are supposed to be, as it looks more like she's wiping something off her opponent's chest, left shoulder to right shoulder. Statlander took Ford's reverse rana really well, and I liked the spot early in the match where she had Shida suplex her into Riho. Riho's offense doesn't look great, but she throws her whole body into dropkicks and body attacks, so those at least look as good as possible. Throwing this many moving parts into a women's division match is inviting problems, but I liked a lot of what they did here. I also think that constantly lumping them into 4 ways or tags isn't really allowing any of them to stand out.

-I was really getting into the Butcher and Blade vs. Jurassic Express tag, when it was just Butcher and Blade cutting off Jungle Boy in their corner. That was the bulk of the match, but it felt like they really lost things the second Luchasaurus finally got tagged in. The guy is a giant compared to Stunt (not there tonight) and Jungle Boy, but he comes in the ring and starts doing bad big man version of Jungle Boy offense: A bad flat foot moonsault off the apron that awkwardly crashes into Butcher, a bunch of thigh slap kicks that all hit weird landing points, a clunky headscissors on Blade, just bad juniors wrestling done by a very large man. Of course, when he wrestles like a very large man, that is also ugly, as it leads to a dry fart of a standing exchange with Butcher. Jungle Boy almost accidentally takes what could have been an insane bump to the floor, although I couldn't tell you how the spot was supposed to go. And moments later the match ends with one of those finishes where commentary goes "Oh that was it! I guess that was the finish!"

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/23/19

What Worked

ER: Marq Quen looked fantastic in the opening tag. This guy gets unreal height on everything and connects. His shooting star was gorgeous, and he took some big spills (really flew into a Fenix german suplex, among other things). PP have some really fun double teams but it can result in a lot of waiting around. Still, Quen is a fun guy to watch. Fenix's double stomp to Quen's shoulderblades was disgusting, he also hit a great tope and I dug his ropewalk punt.

ER: Dark Order looked good and deserved a lot better than Jericho taking regular focus away from their offense. Uno is a big chubby boy and was really great at taking the innovative 2005 offense of SCU, threw some stiff shots, actually made me want to seek out some Uno matches. Grayson hit a bananas tope con giro over the ringpost, looked like he was going to fly 30 feet, also bumped around huge for Kazarian's hot tag.

ER: I am into the 8 man tag they set up, and thought the promo setting it up was great. Jericho dunking on MJF's scarf, Jericho saying "don't take one more step" several times, Cody breaking the glass door to get to Jericho, an actual great security break up, totally want to see this match.

ER: Bucks tag was really fun, built nicely, cool moments came off well. I dug Orange Cassidy's hands in pockets dive, both Bucks had some slick chain offense, Trent threw several nice suplexes (you know, maybe not "Gary Albright-esque" like Excalibur said, because that's dumb), even Taylor had a cool northern lights suplex. Bucks had a nice save on what I thought was the for sure finish, and I thought the match length was perfect for the pace.

ER: Britt Baker has been on these episodes way too damn much, but that coal/steel/iron Steelers logo ring jacket using colored molars instead of stars is damn choice. That jacket has been far and away my favorite thing about Baker.

ER: Moxley had a really nice cover in the final minute, really grapevined the legs and sunk it in.

What Didn't Work

ER: Lucha Bros. tag was far too long. Even though it was "only" 15 minutes, it was so go go go that they hit multiple points where it felt like they were doing way too much. You build a match around two teams hitting tandem chain offense, and the longer it goes the more likely it is that some of it doesn't look good. Pentagon is such a slug in these matches, completely terrible at getting into position for big offense. He almost always gets into position, he's not missing dives or anything, but he literally just walks into the spot he needs to stand, or shifts ridiculously across the mat on his back. He's not good! AEW is still somehow missing a few big spots, barely catching a nuts looking Fenix tope at the end. And I think Private Party really should have won here. Lucha Bros. do not need any kind of big wins at this point. Pentagon shitting up the ring for the past 3 years and getting louder reactions than ever kind of proves that.

ER: This fed is really cornering the market on "Guys trying elaborate ranas, slipping, and falling short of their mark". It has happened every week so far, multiple times this week.

ER: All of the teams I don't want to see are the ones advancing. SCU feel like the most 2005 tag team possible, and I wish their stable was called Bald Dudez.

ER: Omega has a lot of offense that looks like it really hurts, but it must not because Janela was always able to get back up immediately and do something that also looked like it hurt, and sometimes Omega would make funny spittle faces after being hurt, but it turns out he also isn't hurt by Janela's offense. The V Trigger that set up the finish looked extra painful, but I'm not sure why that one knocked Janela out cold but the other V Triggers just made him get up and hit suplexes.

ER: I am sure that I am the first one to say that "TV Time Remaining" is a weird way to end a match when there is still TV time remaining...

ER: We sure did see a lot of 450 splashes and shooting stars tonight. How long is that going to feel exciting? This show needed way more breathing room. It was 2 hours of constant matches, almost all of them worked at the exact same pace, almost all of them using the exact same offense. It's too fucking much.

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