Death Riders vs Don Callis Family Monster Army (AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/28 - 10/4 Part 2)

AEW Dynamite 9/30/26

Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli/Gabe Kidd/Wheeler Yuta/Daniel Garcia/Bryan Danielson) vs Don Callis Family Monster Army (Josh Alexander/Wardlow/Jake Doyle/Lance Archer/Mark Davis)

MD: This speaks for itself. I'm not sure if I really can add anything to it. You saw it, right? You felt it. It was the capstone on a tribute to PAC, an incredibly emotional show. 

It'd be easy to write about Kingston vs TRENT instead, a perfectly solid TV match that went time and had some great selling from Eddie and Trent being a jerk, even if it felt a little like 1998 Big Bubba up against Vincent on Saturday Night. 

I could write about Collision, all of it, a show very much made for me week in and week out (Thanks Tony); write a Workrate Report, one where basically everything worked. 

But Bryan wrestled. 

While we have all learned over the last few years that Bryan Danielson loves to lie, he's not the only data point on this one. We've heard from TK and others. I honestly believe that the wear and tear is what the reports say it is. I believe that it's hard for him to fly. I believe that he will never step in the ring again lightly, maybe never at all, that maybe he never should again. Look, Phil posted on Twitter the other week that Bryan was pumped after DEAN 2 and wanted to get in there against Mad Dog Connelly. I know Phil. He wouldn't have posted it if there was any chance that it would possibly happen. I want nothing but a healthy, happy ending with his family for Bryan, even if it means I never see him wrestle another match.

So there's every possibility this will be Bryan Danielson's last match ever. And I should write about that.

And even if it wasn't, there IS something to say about this match. 

Maybe I don't have to write about the cathartic power of pro wrestling, something that has been helping people, in-ring and out, for over a century. Maybe I don't have to talk in general about how it can help us work out our personal issues, our societal issues, our aggression, our pain. Maybe I don't have to go on about how it can be a morality play where right can triumph through heart (yes, and visceral violence as well) no matter how unfair and complicated our red-tape laden world is. 

And I don't have to talk about my last few weeks. I don't have to talk about how this match actually landed on my birthday, how it came a few days after my nine year old's birthday, how my parents who are pushing 80 real hard and I see twice a year came this last weekend, how the cat likely has pancreatitis or how we're trying to get a new boss up to speed at work. I don't have to go into detail about how I've been online for over two decades talking about pro wrestling with people and how we've carried each other through the losses of the 2000s and how everyone came together here over the last few weeks as well. And how balancing those two worlds threw me at times over this period, or how, yeah, I cried once or twice. You guys have all been living it too.

But I can talk about this match and what will stick with me from watching it.

I love this version of the Don Callis family. Maybe I'd have wanted Brian Cage in there instead of Alexander, but Alexander is probably taller and he's got the head gear and the tattooed arms and he looked like he fit in with all the other monsters. It's a Monster Army in a world of wrestling where that's far less of a thing than it once was. I'm watching 1990 NJPW where Bam Bam Bigelow is teaming with Big Van Vader and Dr. Death Steve Williams and this feels similar. Larger than life, with Wardlow returning to bring up the rear. 

The Death Riders huddled around PAC's chair. Marina lingered with it though the camera cut, so we didn't see how. We did see Danny go out of his way to get a kid's attention and then Marina linger with the kid as well. That matters. All of this does. Mox came to the desk, and while I had likened Eddie Kingston to Columbo recently, Mox was leaning into it hard here. It was cute, yeah, cute, endearing. "Oh it's live wrestling. Let's just let it play out." Something like that. "Just one more thing."

The Death Rider sting hit. Bryan's music hit. And people smiled. You just saw flashes of faces in the crowd. It was easier to see the hands go up and down for the Yes! chants, but you clearly could see the smiles too. Even on this night, people lit up. Tony and Excalibur were laughing heartily. It was wonderful. The power of one person, one song, one movement. A burst of sun through the darkness, dragonfire lighting the sky.

They got right to it, brawling around ringside, big, broad, over the top wrestling. Larger than life. A lot of the above, I didn't notice on a first watch. I was just living it. 

What I did notice on the first watch? The spin. I noticed the giant spin. And I noticed super babyface Marina Shafir spinning along with it at ringside (and selling the dizziness). 

Marina interjected herself a few times in this one, once putting Archer in a dangling armbar in the ropes, once joining in during the team corner charges, and once giving Danny permission or at least a stamp of approval to do his dance. The dance? That served as a lure to set up the corner charges. 

Every time Marina got involved, everything felt so alive. The intensity was through the roof. I know I say this phrase too much and now that I write this, you'll see it whenever I use it again, but I don't care, because it's true. The living, beating, endlessly dynamic lifeblood of pro wrestling was pulsing through her. She was doing all of these bombastic things, but she was still herself, still as intense and driven and in the moment as ever and it all felt so alive. 

And the other Death Riders did such a good job of distracting the ref and covering for her. Things could have broken down, fallen apart, and no one would have cared. Everyone would have just looked the other way or forgiven it, but they care enough about their craft and in turn in crafting an immersive reality that we can delve into that they put the attention to detail in. That is everything, even on this night (especially on this night given what we know about PAC), and I appreciate it so much.

Wardlow got to assert himself cutting off Yuta, hitting him with a fireman's carry Michinoku Driver (I call that the Amityville Horror because of Chris Chetti, but I can't imagine most other people do). Then Yuta played face in peril and the fans got behind him. (I need to fit this in here somewhere but I love the way Doyle makes a bit more space to his his forearms). I don't want to talk about the future or consequences, not really, because this wasn't about that, any of that, because very little could have mattered more than this match on this night. I will say this, however. They came back out on Collision and Yuta was enough of a heel against Austin Gunn that while he maybe couldn't fully get the crowd to boo him so soon after this, he could help them cheer the Bang Bang Gang instead and that is no small thing.

Just as it was no small thing that the crowd was so behind him here. Again, everything felt so alive. The Death Riders went to the floor and slapped the mat and got the crowd going and Yuta survived through the commercial break and got the hot tag to Bryan.

Yes, Bryan had a shirt, but it was a PAC shirt. Yes, he stumbled on the back flip. But he back flipped! Mox mentioned muscle memory. People train for a comeback. He had some gear made for him that day and just went out there. He'd been gardening and helping his kids with homework and who knows what else, and here he was, Bryan Danielson, lightning in a bottle, magic from a lamp, the American Dragon. When he was on the apron and Yuta was struggling, you could see the sweat down his face just from the opening brawling, but it didn't matter. He came in and it was all the more special because it was all the less perfect, because it wasn't effortless, because it was hard and because he was doing it nonetheless.

He had a complete exchange with Alexander, a first time encounter, eating German Suplexes, put in the ankle lock, putting Alexander  over as a threat. He didn't have to do any of that (but of course, he did). He could have been the centerpiece of the match, but instead he made another hot tag to Danny who would get his dance spot and ultimately get the pin.

Things cycled through. Bryan ended up standing next to Yuta. They were going to do the Yes Chant, were going to hit tandem knees. There's a little moment there where Yuta looked to him to get the timing right on the hands and that was as emotional as anything else in the match.

The Death Riders swarmed in the corner. Gabe hit PAC's endless run lariat. Danny got in the Sharpshooter. Claudio hit the stomp. The Death Riders hugged. Mox, while leaving the booth, quietly told a fallen Wardlow that he did a good job even in defeat, one last bit of Columbo on the way out. Danny hugged Yuta from behind and that will stick with me too. 

And I should tie it all back together, right? The emotional power of pro wrestling, how the realness and the genuine emotion is what fuels the engine and how special this all was. How this helped us and how I hope it helped them. But if you made it this far, through this match, through these words, through life up until this point and the last few weeks, I know you know, and I know you can make it the rest of the way too. 

I will say this on the way out though. Pro wrestling can be amazing. When the wrestlers care and when the fans let themselves care, it can do absolutely amazing things. And in a world often full of darkness and uncertainty, we need every amazing thing we can get.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 1/10-1/16

AEW Dark 1/11 (Taped 1/8)

Eddie Kingston vs. Joey Janela - GREAT

MD: The leg selling here. Kingston teased it early. Janela capitalized later on by catching him with a dragon whip as he was coming back in. And the moment of comeback was Kingston stuttering midway through a tope run only to sell for a second and then finishing the motion. It was a little thing but it told the audience everything they needed to know about Eddie in one moment. He was hurt. He was in pain. He was taking a risk and was too hurt to manage it. He did it anyway and it worked. That's Eddie Kingston in a nutshell. Sometimes he pays for it later. Sometimes he doesn't. Janela tried to steal the show here, bumping big, including bumping himself off the top rope to distract the ref so Rossi could hit her big standing moonsault on the floor. He stooged for Eddie, chopping and posing and getting killed, going for the Flair strut in NC before getting kicked out of the ring when he went for the figure-four, etc., but he still managed to come off as a compelling if not convincing threat. Also nice to see Eddie dig into the 90s Japan bag of tricks for a finish he doesn't use as often. Good TV match.

PAS: I really enjoyed this. People assume Janela is one of the guys whose contract is going to expire, but I really like him as a Rip Rogers flamboyant enhancement guy, really a perfect Dark wrestler. This was a Northeast indy main event somewhere, so Kingston gave him a bunch of moments to shine, but of course this is another brilliant bit of Eddie. All of the leg selling totally ruled and I loved the standstill tope, where he just says fuck it and flings himself at Janela. I also really liked the contempt he showed for Janela's striking, firing back with a nasty slap on the outside in response to a chop, and powering though his superkicks. Janela can finds ways to work an advantage on Kingston, but the idea of him trading shots with him in a fight is silly, and Eddie treated it that way. Too many times in wrestling everyone sells every shot by every guy like it drops them for a back bump. I like when people have strengths and weaknesses, and Kingston isn't going to act like Janela can out punch him even a little. 

AEW Dynamite 1/12

CM Punk vs. Wardlow

MD: This worked better on a second watch for me, though the ending was overwrought and, despite the crossing of the legs, the finish was a little hard to buy. Otherwise, it was Punk doing everything he could to help put Wardlow over and Wardlow holding up his end. When Wardlow managed to catch Punk, Punk paid. When Wardlow overreached or gave Punk an opening, Punk used it. It was a strange match as MJF's distraction hurt both wrestlers. Punk continuously had Wardlow's number anytime he went for the powerbomb right up until when MJF distracted him after the corner knee, allowing Wardlow to wrench Punk out of the corner with the first bomb. Everything after that could have lost about two whole minutes, which doesn't sound like much but when it's pure drama and power bombs, it really was.

ER: I really liked this up through powerbomb number five, loved all of it. Wardlow was really running over Punk and Punk was really good at building sympathy and then laying it in stiff when trying just to budge Wardlow. I really loved when Punk started throwing everything he had at him, throwing several stiff arm lariats off Wardlow's chest and back, and a solebutt that drops Wardlow to a knee. The story of Punk avoiding the powerbomb was simple, and I thought once Wardlow caught him in the corner and hit the first one, then planted him with the second one, that this was getting great. Punk sold the powerbombs really well, splaying out his limbs and rolling to his side and getting dragged back up to his feet. The MJF extended finish felt too overindulgent and the more powerbombs Punk took the more silly I knew the eventual finish was going to look. I would have gotten a kick out of Wardlow taking the victory for himself, and then when Punk won with a real sad small package, I wanted that finish even more. The bulk of the match was still a success, and a good confident Wardlow performance that he'll get a chance to do even better. 

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Wednesday WarGames: Inner Circle vs. Pinnacle

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 1/6/21

What Worked

-I was initially down on the opening 8 man tag, finding at odd how much of a backseat The Acclaimed took the entire match. I thought they showed a lot of presence in their Dynamite debut and had kind of assumed they'd be treating them big. So it felt odd when they were such afterthoughts here, at the expense of talking about how Frankie Kazarian hadn't lost a step the entire match. But I admittedly got into the story after the match, with Kazarian's promo. I like a retirement or team breaks up storyline, and while it's true I haven't been excited for a Daniels/Kazarian match since 2001, I think the role of old gunslingers can be suitable to a lot of late career wrestlers. I have a soft spot for wrestlers playing that role, and I like the addition of them breaking up after their next loss. It's something that could supplement the in-ring. The match itself was fun enough, if way too one-sided for SCU/Bucks. I kind of talk out both sides of my mouth, as I have complained about AEW matches worked too competitively, but I think this would have been better if it was more even. I think SCU winning but having to work hard to beat Acclaim/Hybrid2 would have felt like even more stakes going into a much bigger match against the Bucks. It would be more like Rocky taking too much of a beating in a tune-up fight. Bucks had some nice dives, Kazarian worked hard in the match to give the angle some weight, and it kept a good pace. 

-Snoop Dogg at nearly 50 looks so cool in the Doggystyle hoodie. This guy is going to look cool forever and then cool as a corpse. He looked terrible up on that top rope, but who cares, Snoop went off the top rope. We can't all be Federline. 

-Shida/Abadon was nicely laid out, even if it wasn't quite good? Shida has charisma for sure, but her wrestling can be a real mess. She comes off uncoordinated during a lot of spots, and has timing issues, but she has the kind charisma that plays well off of a horror movie Kamala. Abadon bites at Shida's thigh and neck, and works like an ugly bruiser character from the 50s. Shida's incoordination comes out when she is doing more complicated roll ups and timing things with multiple people, and that really didn't come up until the very end here. She mostly sold a beating, brick walled for a couple Abadon clotheslines, and her fighting through things is where her charisma works. So the match played to their strengths without actually being great in-ring. 

-I didn't love the main event - too much Omega goofiness and it could have used an editor - but it was the first time since Fenix got dropped on his head that he looked like he knew which direction he was going in the ring. It was a good main event performance (could have used less melodrama) and had a nice mix of him hitting his great flying offense (dug his double springboard dropkick into wild tope con giro that almost went over the guardrail), and he's great at taking Omega's offense. Fenix will get tossed hard on Germans and lean into v triggers, and he did that all match. Omega takes a reverse rana in a way that looks devastating, but I couldn't tell you the last time a rana that looks like someone is getting spiked on their head was anything more than a "shocking" kickout. We'll see where the pinfall controversy goes, but I don't know if I need another Omega main event epic with Fenix. Fenix is doing well at working big match drama into his bigger singles, but I don't like Omega's specific brand of drama. Maybe I would like a Fenix/Omega sprint more? 

What Didn't Work

-Wardlow/Hager felt like they should have accomplished more with the time they got, felt like the middle was a little time killing. I liked Hager's takedowns and some of the early matwork, and I think would have preferred things stay that way. It feels like a fresher way for bigger guys to work a match these days. But eventually Hager took a nice bump off the apron into the guardrail, and I liked Wardlow's three suplex and slams and a couple other throws. But this didn't quite get to the level that I think it could have. 

-I thought Sydal/Rhodes went WAY too long and felt like they were throwing out way too much. Cody was really flavorless here and he was responsible for a lot of the drag. There was early clumsiness, and Cody felt so...in the way through much of this. Sydal hit a nice meteora to the ramp and a nice dive, but Cody kept taking this thing in such uninteresting directions. The Sydal crossbody with a clumsy Cody roll through into leg work just seemed like somebody throwing dumb sequences at the wall. I hate that thing Cody does where he bumps the same direction his opponent is already bumping, so has to do this stupid jog like when a car is waiting for you to finish crossing the street, just to be able to bump somewhere there isn't a body. He did that kind of thing a lot here. This had bad energy despite not being dull, it just went too long and never hit the level it thought it was at. 

-I do not like Jericho on commentary. It is way too much, and he sounds like a drunk guy rambling over everyone half the time. It's like having two JR's out there, which is two too many. During Inner Circle matches? Fine. During entire broadcasts? Please, no. No more. 

-A Bullet Club revival, famous hand sign included, is not going to be the thing to excite me. I am sure that it excites many other people, and that's fine by me. Is this something people are excited about? Jericho was acting excited. 

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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 10/21/20

 What Worked

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

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

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

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

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

What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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

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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 6/24/20

What Worked

-AEW realized that nobody in the fed knows how to catch a dive, so I appreciate they made a match into a lumberjack just so 18 guys would be standing close together to catch someone. The set up was clumsy as hell, but it's smart to recognize your weaknesses.

-Super smart usage of Shida, just a quick running high knee and nice falcon arrow and then leaping aggressively into the crowd to smack Penelope around. Shida is someone who fucks up everyone's timing in every AEW match I've seen her in, so quick squashes to build to bigger matches is brilliant.

-Lee/Cabana vs. Janela/Kiss was certainly a pleasant surprise. They kept a hot pace for 8 minutes, and I cannot believe that this is the first actual non-battle royal that Kiss has been in over the entire Dynamite run. He came off like a real star in this one, if not a main eventer than someone who should clearly be a featured attraction every couple of weeks. He and Janela had a lot of chemistry as a team and I liked their quick tandem flying and the way they would run into big Brodie boots or screens. There was really only one hinky spot (where Cabana held up on a roaring elbow and Kiss bumped a little early for it), but most of this was fun fun fun.

-FTR/SCU was a hot tag that started falling apart a bit down the stretch, but I think they mostly did a good job at going home when things started slipping. I think this got good during the picture in picture break right after they did the tandem suplexes over the top to the floor, and thought Hardwood was especially strong with his cutoff punches. I think SCU's double team work was surprisingly more  solid, but I don't really care about FTR as a "double team" kind of tag team, I prefer them more as a cutoff tag team. So it was a complementary pairing with a strong progression. I dug SCU coming back with Daniels' slingshot elbow and Kazarian's big legdrop, and how it lead to FTR taking over later when Kazarian missed with an even bigger legdrop. Even a couple things that missed (like a Daniels flying knee that missed the mark) looked good after Wheeler took a nasty bump ricocheting off the ropes. Don't love FTR cutting gassed post-match in ring promos, but it's at least unique to them and so for now I'll appreciate it as a feature.

-Nice Cage squash. Jon Cruz is the right kind of ragdoll bumper that makes someone like Cage shine, getting insane height on a flapjack and crumpling nicely on everything. I dig Cage's bicep curl spot, feels like something an awesome juiced bodybuilder should be doing. Press slams and bicep curls, fuck yeah. There just needs to be a bodybuilder wrestler who bases every piece of offense on his regular gym set.

-Hardy/Santana was a good pairing and I liked seeing all the cool ways Santana would bump wildly for Hardy. In the opening couple minutes alone he was flying to the floor, all around ringside, and into the barricade. His cutoff work was simple and I liked how he would mix quick reversals in with just choking and stomping away at Hardy in the corner. The flip reversal out of the Side Effect was something I hadn't seen, and I like that it didn't come off fluidly; it came off like Hardy was going through with the move as planned and was genuinely surprised at Santana's reversal. After seeing the abomination that was Wardlow/Luchasaurus and how they kept anticipating every single move a split second (or more) too early, this kind of surprise struggle was awesome to see. I'm into 45 year old Hardy busting ass and keeping up with quick guys like Santana, and dig that he's pulling it off.

-Fine segment to close out the show, really loved how they kept building to the moment where it looked like Jericho was going to pop Cassidy. The through the crowd brawl was real good (also why the fuck are there so many people there in the crowd?? Who are they??), loved the hotshot Jericho took on a railing and especially loved how cool Orange Cassidy looks while bleeding all over himself out of the ear. It's almost like blood automatically makes nearly every wrestling situation better? Jericho's bump was cool, still no clue why so many people were there, but this was a good way to close out the show.


What Didn't Work

-Wardlow/Luchasaurus was a shitty version of a shitty Keith Lee/Dijakovic match, the kind of match that could have been good had they just done shoulderblocks and clotheslines, and instead derailed in hilarious fashion once they decided to pepper in a ton of slo mo dancing. The strike exchanges were all terrible, with Wardlow throwing slow punches from a mile away and both doing pillow soft slo mo Frye/Takayama strikes. Luchasaurus kept showing too much of his hand on bumps, clearly prepping for bumps that never quite matched up to the move Wardlow was delivering. And by the time the match devolved into Luchasaurus doing his embarrassing DDR exchanges it become one of the saddest matches I've seen on Dynamite. Literally every one of Luchasaurus dance exchanges looked like he was throwing them for the first time, without practicing, and without making sure that he could make any of it look good. And none of it looked good. It arguably peaked with him hitting the slowest legsweep I've ever seen, with Wardlow then taking a flat back bump after getting slowly legswept in the shins. Incredible. Luchasaurus whiffed on every strike that was supposed to be caught, thigh slapped when kicks didn't connect, and made sure every single kick he threw looked like a giant pile of triceratops shit. The flying off the stage was a minor bright spot, full props for Marko getting launched like that, but the set up for all of the big spots was so clunky and unnatural  and not a good enough reason to work an entire lumberjack match just to use them as a base. This was a real sad way to start a show.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 4/29/20

What Worked

ER: Cody/Darby was really good, while also having a finish I thought made Darby look like a first class dummy, and a bunch of knee work that added absolutely nothing to the match. I loved the smoke and mirrors and the actual big match feel that they worked, and all of the knee work could have played into something cool if they remembered to give it a third act. It was set up by Cody tweaking his knee while bridging up, which is a cool way to set up something like that. I tweaked my hip getting up too quick after napping on the couch, surely it's possible for Cody to tweak a knee while doing an off balance bridge. But neither ever seemed too interested in building off that, until they were suddenly VERY interested in building off that for two minutes, until they both decided that they can move past it. While Darby was working a kneebar on the knee that he didn't originally attack, that was probably my first clue that none of this was going anywhere, but I don't put that on Darby. I thought his cannonball into Cody's knee was cool, dug the floatover Indian deathlock grapevine, and was bummed that they couldn't find a way to close that story out. The rest of the big match stuff played nicely.

Darby was great at being bullied around by Cody, loved the spot where he got flung into Brandi and Cody still fit in a thrust kick before tending to his wife. Britt Baker hitting Cody with a shoe was weird, but kind of fun (even if it felt a little out of place in this kind of match. I mean would they build to Baker/Brandi or something? Plus after she hit him with her shoe I'm STUNNED that Jericho didn't say something like "She turned HEEL!"), and Cody really came off like a confident star in his beatdown. I liked the finish, until I didn't. Cody foolishly attempting the Coffin Drop really feels like something hubristic that Cody would try in a big match, only to have it backfire. But the finish was so telegraphed and only even works on paper if you believe that Darby is an actual idiot. Darby hits his own Coffin Drop right after, then pins Cody, but you see it was actually CODY who pinned DARBY! And for that to work, I am supposed to believe that for the first time in his life, Darby opted to pin a man in a position that he's never pinned anyone before, rolling himself back onto his shoulders ON THE MAT to pin Cody. This might have felt clever on paper, but made Darby look like a real dweeb in practice. Sometimes just a normal boring finish is better than a cute finish that requires out of behavior stupidity.

PAS: I thought this was mostly very good outside of the wonky finish. Cody doesn't really have the kind of offense or bumping or selling which connects with me. If he did everything 10% better I think I would like him a lot, but he is kind of missing that 10%. Darby is so good, he first showed up on people's radar as an insane bump machine, but now he can work a match like this where he hardly takes any big bumps at all, and just move the match along on his timing and the fluidity of his offense. I really liked Cody hurting his knee on the bridge up, and do wish that the legwork part of the match was done better, although I kind of accept that limb work isn't what these guys do. I haven't been watching much empty arena wrestling, but the AEW set up of wrestlers in the crowd works way better then the WWE setup. Here it just feels like an IWA-MS show with 30 people in the crowd, and that is still a recognizable form of pro wrestling


-I liked Wardlow yanking Musa off the top into a kneelift, and liked Wardlow's bump off Musa's kind of sketchy handspring spinkick.

-The Flim Flam Jam was fine for what it was, but the Manitoba Melee was entertaining and a fun use of quarantine. Good use of cameos, but I'm surprised they actually didn't do a sponsored ad with Cameo. They got Ferrigno, and I'm sure you can probably find people like Ted Beneke from Breaking Bad for a good price. And now I'm wondering if Larry Blackmon is on Cameo.

-Britt Baker's promo from her dental office was the kind of segment that is making me an unexpected fan of Baker. I wish her dental office was filled with more awkward sibling photos, the way my dad's dental office has pictures of my sister and I, with the most recent one of either of us being from 2004.

-Brodie/Marko was fun, which I recognize means that I now have to face myself in the mirror while trying to come to terms with how Deeply Disturbing my conscious has become. I am amused at moments like Lee swinging a clothesline from his normal arm slot and being surprised it missed, even though his normal clothesline traces 2 feet over Marko's head. But Marko crashed and burned spectacularly, the spinning slam looked great, the sitout powerbomb finish was disgusting, and him stepping right on Marko's face was maybe the coolest thing Lee has done in AEW.

ER: Dustin/Archer was very good, the kind of high class main event wrestling story that Dustin excels at. You need an irrepressible vet to die on his sword in an effort to keep this bad haired bad tattooed wrestler from fighting his brother? Dustin is going to deliver. Archer has come a long way and has some impressive big offense. I do think the seams in his game come out the longer his matches tend to go, and this was a match that got a lot of time. Against someone who wasn't Dustin, that would have been a big problem. But Dustin is good at filling time and good at building sympathy, and it's cruel that this match wasn't in front of any kind of pro wrestling crowd. Bloody Dustin is a babyface who NEEDS a crowd, needs to have fans losing it as his blood drips across his face at cool angles (seriously how great does Dustin blood always look as a visual). I love how Archer countered a lot of Dustin's signature stuff, like blocking the dropdown punch or stopping his momentum to block Dustin's powerslam, that kind of stuff is right up my alley. Archer busts open Dustin with a chair, and Dustin bleeding means his opponent is going to punch him in his cut, and that rules. Both guys traded some really hard clotheslines, Dustin finally does hit that snap slam, and I like the AEW Story is Obvious moment of Archer kicking out of the Cross Rhodes at 1. I can definitely do without stuff like Archer's long rope walk moonsault, which while impressive, felt completely out of place in a bloody fight. It's also a shame that a lot of Archer's weakest stuff came during the home stretch of the match (that repeated facepalm into the mat while just holding the other side of Dustin's head looks like something that would have been edited out in post), but overall this was a great presentation.

PAS: I liked parts of this a lot (The Dustin parts obviously), but I don't think this fully connected with me. Archer is so plodding and having him work this long section of dominance was tough. He wanders around, hits a mediocre punch or clothesline and wanders some more. He is supposed to come off like this vicious killer, but instead comes off like a big Power Plant guy with a couple of bits of big offense, but no idea how to string a match together. I think Dustin vs. Shawn O'Haire could be a good match, but not for 20+ minutes, with O'Haire lumbering around for 16 of it.  I don't know how many big Dustin main events are left, and each one is a treasure, but I wish he had a better dance partner for this one.


What Didn't Work

-Leave it to chuds like Chuck Taylor and Kip Sabian to make the No DQ stip as uninteresting as possible. When Jimmy Havoc is in the top half of workers in any given match, you know you've sunk to some depths. Taylor threw some strikes so bad in this match that were so bad there would be no way of describing them to a non fan as strikes. You've possibly never seen clubbing forearms as bad as whatever Chuck Taylor was doing. Some of the garbage stuff looked good, like Havoc blindsiding Orange Cassidy with a thrown chair, or Taylor taking a backdrop onto a ladder, but overall? Nah. This is one of those matches where the best thing you can say about it is "Well all of the people I dislike the most were all used in the same segment, which means their specific brand of awful was at least quarantined and won't infect the rest of the show."

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/19/20

What Worked

PAS: I think overall the tag battle royal worked although there was almost as much I didn't like as I liked. Jack Evans may be the most underused wrestler around. At least Drew Gulak got the Cruiserweight run and Ohno gets to have matches on NXT UK that no one but me and Eric watch. I can't believe we got a super long Chuck Taylor run and Evans was the first guy out. The lack of heavyweights was really exposed too, the Lucharesu vs. Butcher showdown was the worst big guy face off in battle royal history, weak strikes and whatever the hell that clothesline thing was. I am not a Bucks guy, but I dug the finish run, and our boy Sammy gets the spot of the match (even though he wasn't in the match) absolutely dying flying right into a superkick.

PAS: Got to love Raven buying a ticket and trying to carney his way into a payday. Hustlers hustle.

PAS: I liked Nyla Rose's promo a bunch, had a very Mark Henry feel. "I cut her strings"

PAS: I thought Cobb and Moxley was a bit too New Japanish for me to truly love it, but Cobb is a great addition and will always throw out some amazing stuff, and Mox is a pretty big guy to get chucked the way Cobb will chuck you. I liked the escape finish by Moxley and the post match brawl was great, and I absolutely love how over Darby Allin is now. They turned Darby into Sting which is pretty great.

ER: Man that tag title match was maybe the best version so far of "AEW: The Match". After watching that exhausting and not very satisfying NXT TakeOver this past weekend, I was pretty burned. And these guys - many of whom I don't really like - went out there and felt like they actually purposely started things out slow, until things kept ramping up, famous video game finishers got kicked out of, and they felt like they earned their chants and really had the crowd eating out of their palms. NXT was tiring, 2.5 hours of Mauro screaming at me while the matches sprinted like the derby scene in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I would have loved to hear Gig Young call this match. I wasn't expecting restraint to start and it really got me onboard early. It was somehow the same thing as NXT, but different and done better. Not everything worked. Pentagon has a habit of leaning out of some things, and some Page offense is still silly and insulting to cowboy gimmicks, but those two also contributed. Page hit a really great moonsault to the floor to cap off a crazy sequence, and Pentagon really can die on things and has a great sense of timing. This really stepped up when Omega and Pentagon had their apron sequence, throwing big chops and playing to the fans, Pentagon hitting a great enziguiri to the face, Omega hitting a V-cutter to cut off Pentagon's catch phrase comedy (I will always cheer someone who does that), and ending with Fenix speedwalking the ropes and booting Omega right in the teeth. Fenix was on something else here, already usually one of the more breathtaking flyers, and here on a good night. His missile dropkicks hit like missiles, that ropewalk kick was spectacular, and he breaks out a tornillo so effortlessly that it makes no sense. We get a couple of too big kickouts, but we didn't get any silly pop up no sells or anything, just unlikely kickouts that still lead to the finish. It was definitely an AEW match, which has been a style that I have spent many weeks now not always enjoying, but I thought this was a standout within the style. Their connection to the crowd really felt like they were taking the match on all of the exact turns the crowd wanted them to take. Yowza Yowza Yowza.

ER: Main event cage match was really well done too. Cody is becoming pretty undeniable in the ring at this point. He's a real main event bleeder, and that's going to stand out in a big way since that's not a thing happening on America's main wrestling stage. Cody really made that cage match feel big. Wardlow has been built up to a degree by AEW having him not wrestle for his entire time there, so debuting as more than muscle in a main event cage came off big. Cody ragdolled well and made all of the big moments feel big. I thought the Arn cage door moment would come off cheesy with MJF making faces in the background, but Arn's timing is still strong and his swing into MJF's face was perfect. They really filmed the cage to make it look 20 feet tall, Made the festivities come off crazier, and Cody's match ending moonsault off the top looked wild shot from below. This capped off probably the strongest hour of AEW TV yet. Awesome showing.


What Didn't Work

PAS: I have no idea why Shanna is always in these really long TV matches that should be squashes. I was amused at Britt Baker fucking with Tony Schiavone and Ross being disgusted with Statlander's Alien bullshit. Statlander is tall and athletic I guess, but I very much don't see it.

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