80s Joshi on Wednesday: Chigusa! Lioness! Matsumoto! Masami!

Volume 5 

9. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Devil Masami & Dump Matsumoto 2/28/84 

K: Even if this was a bad match, and it certainly isn't, this was always 100% making the set; because it's one of the most important angles in Joshi history and effectively sets the scene for the next two or three years of big feuds.

The crowd is noticeably a bit wilder than usual. Both teams need to avoid rowdy fans trying to grab a hold of them, the Crush Gals are practically fighting their way to the ring. But other than that there’s nothing yet really hinting that something big is going to happen, in fact the whole 1st fall is just a match. When Dump’s in the ring she hits two big lariats to Asuka. The first one was allowed to sink in very well, the second one probably could have done without Asuka being up for a drop toehold almost immediately but I think the first one was enough to get the move over a bit. Devil on the other hand is using more wrestling skill to beat Asuka on the mat, you see the contrast when she tags in Dump after a bit of matwork and Dump’s first move is to go straight for stomping on Asuka’s hand. But the closest thing we get to cheating actually comes from Devil when she gets frustrated with being unable to keep Asuka down and starts pulling her hair. Chigusa gets very worked up about this on the apron pointing it out to the referee.

This is a fine match and all, the one good thing about it is it feels like they’re getting over more the contrast between Devil and Dump’s mode of heeling than the actual fight with the Crush Gals, who are more there as antagonists for Devil and Dump to try overcome, as strange as that sounds. There’s a little escalation in moves when Dump hits Asuka with a lariat again, but the 2nd time instead of hitting another one again, moves to two big kicks instead that got some reaction. She is very much out done in the moves department though when Devil hits an awesome tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, then locks in a Romero Special and gets the submission win and proves to everyone what a great wrestler she is.

So that’s the 1st fall, which is just a match. The 2nd fall is where it starts turning into an angle as Dump, for no real reason at all, pulls out a weapon. Now usually in AJW when heels pull out weapons in the 2nd fall, it’s because they lost the 1st fall and feel the need to stack the deck in their favour. Pulling out weapons in the 2nd fall when you just won the 1st one relatively cleanly is against the code of conduct even for AJW heels. What on Earth is Dump doing?

There’s also a funny bit where she fails to play hide-the-weapon by dropping it, but that might help the narrative a bit because it means Devil obviously notices it as well as the referee and they BOTH scold her, Devil even looks like she’s trying to get Dump to hand it over. The angle escalates more when they fight on the outside and Dump is trying to use weapons again, but Devil actually physically restrains her this time. This means Masked Yu has to get involved to keep the Crush Gals from taking advantage of the fallout. Oh no it’s all going wrong.

Now the 3rd fall is barely even a match, it’s just an angle. Dump is mad at Devil for intervening over the weapons usage and is behaving like she doesn’t care about the match anymore, she just wants to hurt someone. Her and Masked Yu jump the Crush Gals with their weapons, they get DQ’d finally, but then they attack Devil Masami from behind and choke her with a cable around her neck! What psychos. 

If I was to fault the execution of this in anyway I feel like the Crush Gals could have done a bit more than just be there, it felt like they could have put almost any other babyface tag team in their role and it wouldn’t have made a difference? But it feels silly to have any significant criticisms about this. After the match Devil announces that she’s disbanding Devil Legion, though she still leaves with Itsuki Yamazaki, so I guess they’re just a tag team now and Dump & Yu are going their own way? Tarantula is about to retire so not really a factor anymore.

Just for match itself I’d give this ***, but wrestling is more than just the matches of course.

Oh and another note, for people who are nerdy about this stuff. You’ll spot wrestlers on the outside all wearing company tracksuits with AJWW on them. Yes, an “extra” W. I say extra because afaik the company never actually called itself ‘AJW’, it’s just something Western observers came up with at some point. Perhaps someone thought having AJWW was unwieldy, dropped 1 W, and now it’s just stuck forever.

MD: We have seen some shifts over the last few months. Fans are more into Devil than before, especially the new crowd of younger girls. Obviously, they’re not going to pick her over the Crush Gals, but there has been a shift. Part of me wonders if this is because they started watching when she was having a heel vs heel feud (with her as the de facto face of sorts) against Monster Ripper in fall 83 (of that, we have the Chain match; it felt like a weather balloon of sorts). 

Dump has become Dump. Even two months before, she was still Kaoru (we also have a 2/4/84 draw with her teaming with Yu vs the Crush Gals which MIGHT have been better than this tag even if it’s not as historically important). She also wasn’t using the weapon(s) two months before nearly as much, though she was coming into her own and asserting herself. It’s striking, thinking back, how the hidden weapon was much more a part of the Black Army’s act than something the Devil Army used. You didn’t really see it much in the Devil/Tarantula or Devil/Yamazaki tags. They were mean and brutal but there was much more high tempo offense and tandem offense instead, and while the Army interfered plenty, it was all blatant and if there was a weapon involved it tended to be the sword and used to turn the tide. So you can sort of get why Devil was so frustrated here, especially as she was telling Dump specifically not to do this. 

These are the sort of distinctions that watching chronologically help us work out. We always lose some to context. There’s a different ref than usual here, for instance, and I know the commentary talked about another ref getting disqualified for being biased in a January match, but I don’t think we have the January 18 (Probably Jaguar/Chigusa vs Dump/Devil) match and I’m not 100% sure what was going on and if it’s about. Was it something that led to refs being more permissive as the year went on or just a failed way to deal with the chaos.

You really do get a sense of what Dump/Devil would have looked like as a super team. Lioness is able to deal with Dump with her athleticism but Dump has a way of turning things back over with her strength and size. She’ll turn a sunset flip right back over after Lioness gets her, that sort of thing. Chigusa is more reliant on her kicks and heart, but we’ll see more of this as the year goes on, I’m sure. First fall ended with Devil dismantling Lioness’ back and getting a submission with a tapitia, a rare sight. Second fall had the weapons come out with Devil frustrated. Maybe that let the Crush Gals come back with tandem offense, including the double kick and their belly to back/back elbow drop off the top finisher. Then, of course, the third fall devolved into chaos with Yu and Dump ultimately turning on Devil and Devil announcing the disbanding of the Devil Army. Most interesting bit of all of this was her facing off with the Crush Gals post match. You still get more of a sense that Devil’s rivals were Jaguar, Mimi, and Jumbo/Yukari and there was a generation gap of sort between her and Chigusa/Lioness, even though she was only a year or two older, but it added to the wonder of what might possibly happen next. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 10/19 - 10/25

ROH TV 10/22/26

Lee Moriarty vs Mance Warner

MD: "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." is a quote attributed to Orson Welles, though we only have second-hand evidence he ever said it.

It is counter-intuitive, of course. If you can do absolutely anything then you can be as creative as possible, right? There are a few ways to look at it. For me, when talking about pro wrestling, creativity is a means and not an end. Innovation is a means and not an end. Creativity and innovation are not intrinsically good (I know, that's counter-intuitive too). What are the wrestlers trying to accomplish? For those who are just trying to be creative and innovative for the sake of being creative and innovative, even if it is to stand out, then very often, it comes at a cost. The end product is less primal, less resonant, less focused. The limitations of the form, norms, rules, expectations, consistent boundaries from match to match and show to show, all not only provides fans a grounding point so they can value things in a unified experience, but also force a sort of contained, constrained, distilled, concentrated sort of creativity. They give the wrestlers something to push off of instead of just things to tear down. 

It's true for any match. It's especially true for tag team wrestling, which is so often why I'm frustrated by the Young Bucks, who lean hard into an unbridled sort of deconstructive creativity at the expense of the all of those time-tested and straightforward tricks and tools that come from leaning hard into the enforced rules of tag team wrestling. Having a permissive Rick Knox in all of their matches leaves so much opportunity for heat, build, payoff (denial! denial is such an important part of tag team wrestling) on the table. With a little more time and care, they could still have their cake and eat it too. Instead, they gorge themselves on all the cake they can eat. It's spectacular, often delicious, but man are those calories ever emptier than they could be. If every match can become a tornado tag at any point, what's the value of the rules in the first place?

But yes, even more than tag team wrestling, there is the Pure Rules division of ROH. Three rope breaks. One punch. Twenty-count on the floor. Three judges. A sixty minute time-limit (probably about thirty minutes too long, maybe even forty minutes too long for a televised/PPV product, but that's beside the point; you DO want the judges to come into play now and again or why are they even there, right?). 

The rules are an opportunity. The rules allow different, unique stories to be told. They give wrestlers a jumping off point to be creative and allow that creativity to matter more. How can you work the rope breaks into a match? How can you work the punch or lack of such into a match (that's a big one for this match)? If things matter differently in Pure Rules matches, how can you use that distinction to be more creative, not less so?

Which brings us to Mance Warner. Lee Moriarty has an a very long reign as pure champ and while plenty of his matches play into the rules in clever ways, I've seen a few where a wrestler just comes in and wrestles like they might normally. It becomes more of a throwaway match in that case, one that leaves so much on the table. Those matches end up as Lee Moriarty showcases because he's playing with the rules while his opponent is just there for the ride.

Mance Warner was not going to leave a single scrap on the table. A match is an opportunity. It's a chance to show the world what you can do, to make people care about you, remember you, want to see more of you. A gimmick match, and the Pure Rules are, in their own way, a gimmick (just like Dax Harwood would claim a tag team match to be), is a chance to highlight what makes a wrestler special with some unconventional limitations. 

The fact that Warner is an unconventional wrestler, a roughneck, wildman brawler and scrapper, means that to put him in this sort of a dignified, technical, scientific environment creates an immediate fish out of water, Country Mouse/City Mouse dissonance. That's unquestionably interesting, and Mance knows it's interesting. He leaned hard into it in promos and social media. Mance mastered the rule book. He was ready to bend it and twist it and engage with it in every way possible to win. 

That meant, for once, a Pure Rules Title defense became not a Lee Moriarty showcase, but instead a Mance Warner showcase. The power of limitations. The openness to be creative in the face of them, not in spite of them but because of them.

There are a couple of ways to look at Pure Rules matches (and they don't have to be mutually exclusive). Are you interested in the technique at play, the mechanics, the tricked out submissions, the counters? Or are you interested in the characters, how they interface with each other, the rules, the possibilities? Again, it's not either/or but this match was so fascinating for the latter.

Moriarty got Warner into a cross armbreaker shortly after the bell rung. Mance paused, hesitated. Did he blow one of his rope breaks so early? Did he stay in the hold too long and potentially find a solution that didn't cost him one but instead weakened him for the rest of the match? That's interesting! He picked the rope break, but the fact he hesitated beforehand was just as fascinating as his decision. That's the sort of storytelling that you get from pro wrestling matches themselves and not just the angles or build to them (again, not either/or). It's human. In that moment, you saw into the character's soul. 

Where Mance (the character) succeeded the most were those places where he could bring forth his own style and dance around rules and conventions (pushing off of them to create an emotional effect instead of just ignoring them to do whatever he wanted). That might be spitting on his hands before a double knucklelock challenge, or, memorably, slipping Lee's foot over the rope on a pin attempt in a way that the ref couldn't see the slip, only the result, to force Lee to burn a rope break. We've seen similar things (rope breaks on illegal rope-assisted holds that counted, something that I didn't like nearly as much as this since they went against the spirit of the rules instead of playing towards them), but this was the sort of thing a canny wrestler out of his element might get away with one time. 

Lee's reaction was great too since he represented order and consistency and competence and here was this bumpkin (affectionate from me, not from Lee) coming in to create chaos in his orderly pro wrestling. Likewise with the spitting in the hands; Lee responded with a wristlock, patting Mance's hand against the mat to clean it off. It was a dance of character and personality and that's the best sort of pro wrestling dance imaginable.

By dancing this dance, by leaning into his own canniness and roughness, Mance kept Lee on his toes. He might throw a forearm or he might drop him down into a crossface. Lee couldn't know what to expect next. The problem was that it wasn't a dance he could dance forever. He mounted the top rope with Lee under him and while he realized he couldn't throw a punch (or didn't want to sacrifice his one punch in that moment), the weighing of the possibilities threw him off and Lee was able to literally throw him headfirst into the post. 

That changed the dynamics of the match. In fact, it introduced an entirely new element to a Pure Rules match. Mance Warner came back to the ring a bloody mess. Theoretically, it was more a Mance Warner match now, but maybe not when the blood was only flowing from one person. Lee controlled (all the way to forcing Lance to blow a rope break by biting the ropes to get out of a straitjacket-like hold). Mance came back. 

I think, ultimately, he got a little too out over his skis. He started using a chair in clever ways as a way to take off some of the leverage, as a way to get an extra bound. At some point, I think for Mance, blood running down his face, rope-breaks disappearing, it no longer became about beating Moriarty but instead about showing him all the things he could do. That very sort of creativity that can create for worse matches! But here it was all in character and made for a better one. Why? Because in the end, it cost Mance. Maybe it helped him force Lee to blow all of his rope breaks. Maybe it allowed him to last longer than should have been possible with the pure champ, but he blew all his breaks too, and all else equal, Lee was going to tie him up in the ropes, not the other way around.

All that means to me though, is that if Mance gets even one more chance against Lee, maybe, just maybe, he gets the balance right. And isn't THAT idea interesting! Isn't pro wrestling great?

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Found Footage Friday: PWFG We Love Murdoch FOREVER 7/27/96

Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi "We Love Murdoch FOREVER" 7/27/96 

MD: Pretty sure this is the last PWFG show ever and it's a Dick Murdoch tribute. I was expecting a blurry handheld but this has commentary and is on a polished home video. They start with a ten bell salute with Fujiwara holding a picture of Murdoch and they show photos of Fujiwara and Murdoch battling over the years throughout, including a great shot of Murdoch about to hit Calf Branding. 

PAS: Incredible that we got a previously unseen PWFG show, honestly one of my favorite promotions ever and there is still gold in them hills.

Arkangel de la Muerte/Blitzkrieg/Hellblazer vs. Suicide Kid/Super Phoenix/Ultraman Jr.

MD: Cagematch only has two Blitzkrieg matches in Japan and this is one. Who knows how reliable that is. It only has 8 matches of his before 99. I don't think I've seen any 1996 Blitzkrieg. Commentary said that this was a lucha libre match with the hot young stars of Mexico. 

Obviously there was a lot going on here. Arkangel and Ultraman were mostly paired, which seemed to make sense. Hellblazer looked like indie lucha Abyss ten years early and he was basing well for everyone, plus had one killer forearm. I wondered if it was actually Blitzkrieg as he had a pared down look and was with the rudos, but yes, yup, can confirm. Definitely Blitzkrieg. You see it in his first handspring into the corner and then you definitely see it when he comes off the top to the floor twisting too many times and far too fast to be just about anyone else. Anyway, that cleared the ring for the finish. Fans weren't into this quite as much as you'd expect but they probably didn't come to this specific show for this specific match either.  

ER: What an unexpected match to find on a PWFG card. The PWFG crowd - for the most part - did not seem to want it on the card. It's not a very good match, but fascinating from a historical standpoint. This is among the earliest Blitzkrieg matches we have (is it the earliest? Feels like it), and it's cool seeing the act in its infancy, tried out on the wrong Japanese crowd (at a time when his style would have fit in perfectly in every other Japanese indy). What's funny, is while the crowd doesn't seem to want this match, Blitzkrieg is the guy who gets the most reaction from them. He is 120 pounds soaking wet, has no presence to speak of, and spends the match pulling up his karate pants that kept slipping down. He also moves like someone who looked insanely far ahead of US juniors wrestling, so even though everything he did made zero impact due to his size, it's still cool seeing him somersault senton himself onto Super Phoenix's face or do some kind of twisting back splash to the floor that gets the crowd temporarily alive. 

I unexpectedly thought Hellblazer looked like the most polished wrestler in the match. Unexpected, because Arkangel is a guy I always go out of my way to see, but here I thought he was mostly stuck doing rote basing for Ultraman and looked more like he was rushing to get out of there. Hellblazer had strikes that would have played in 1996 Japan indies, swung missed clotheslines at Suicide Kid's face and hoped he ducked, caught a slick Suicide Kid slingshot rana on the floor, just seemed like a guy who understood Japanese undercard juniors trios better than the rest of the guys in the match (again, feels absurd to say that about someone who is in a match with Arkangel).  

PAS: If we had gotten this match in 1996 we would have been losing our collective shit, this has a very CMLL Japan feel to it, especially with Archangel and Ultraman Jr. who where staples of that promotion, lots of cool armdrags, and Blitzkrieg was out of his mind in a way you rarely saw back then. He does like two things in the match, but they are both mental.  It isn't necessarily what 50 year old Phil wants out of a PWFG show, but 20 year old Phil would have opened  Schneider Comp 6 with this for sure.

Onryo vs. Pequeno Gefero

MD: On paper, Onryo vs Pequeno anything seems unfair. I have no idea who this guy is and the internet isn't much help. Commentary said he was from Brazil and a mysterious fighter. If this was 8 years earlier, I would have said he could have been Owen. If it was 6 years earlier I would have said it could have been Benoit. He was blonde with a real Calgary feel to him under the mask.

Almost a rough around the edges ECW/pre-Super indie bombfest feel to this. They did a lot of stuff. Lots of bombs. Some of it hit well. Some of it was that "Oooooh" of barely getting a guy over for a power bomb. Onyro started hot with a big dive and I thought he'd not look back but Gefero got a dragon screw and a STF. Onryo had to snatch the ropes with his teeth. After that, Onryo came back with a twisting shoulder tackle off the second rope where the timing was off  and they didn't look back together.

When Onryo finally won the thing with a low blow and small package instead of something more dominant you bought it because nothing conventional was going to stop either of these two on this night. This is the sort of match that probably would have made a comp tape in 1996 but might not in 2026, if that makes sense. 

ER: I am a big fan of Onryo undercard singles matches. Dude is a weirdo who hits hard and can crash harder, and he's weirdly good at getting neat matches out of unknowns or greenhorns. I have no idea who Pequeno Gefero might be - only that his existence implies the existence of a regular size or gigantic Gefero - but damn if he didn't stand firmly in the way of Onryo's low cutting springboard cannonball, taking it right to the chest and face with no soft landing, and keep finding ways to impress. When the match started, I was convinced he was a beginner tasked with catching something far beyond Beginner Level, and by the end he seemed like kind of a badass who was testing Onryo's patience. Who knows where the truth may lie in all that. There are moments where Onryo seems frustrated, where Gefero seems to not know how to follow up...but many more sequences where the match grows to something More.

Moments like Onryo breaking La Tapatia by biting the middle rope, or when Gefero runs too close to the turnbuckles for Onryo to fully rotate on his corkscrew moonsault, so instead it hits Gefero like a torpedo headbutt. After, Onryo drills him with a fast and rough Saito suplex to teach him a lesson, then teaches him the same lesson to make sure he doesn't forget. You'd think that's where the match was headed, towards Onryo imposing his will on the way to the finish...but that's when Gefero goes on a big run, hitting stiff clotheslines, a superplex, even hitting his own torpedo shoulderblock off the buckles to the floor! Where I was expecting Onryo, the assumed vet, to take things home by beating Gefero's ass, the reverse kind of happens? Instead of beating ass to the finish, Onryo looks like he is the one looking for a way out. He punches Gefero in the balls and Gefero reacts to it the way a man not expecting to be punched in the balls would react. When Onryo takes him over with a small package to finish, it is not clean. Gefero gets spiked on his head by Onryo pulling him into the clutch, shoulders forced down with the weight of the hold. Something happened. Maybe nothing nefarious. Maybe just intriguing pro wrestling. 

Masashi Aoyagi/Takashi Okamura vs. Hirofumi Miura/Masayoshi Motegi

MD: This was chaotic, having that mix of karate guys fighting, out of the ring brawling, and weapons and just enough blood that you'd expect from some Japanese indies in the 90s. Miura took a hell of a beating from Okamura and Aoyagi for a chunk of this. He'd try to just eat the kicks and the kicks would eat him. 

They controlled on Aoyagi for a bit later but it was by tossing him out and using weapons. That led to a big comeback from Okamura where he ducked nunchucks followed by him messing around with them in the ring as Aoyagi crushed people on the outside. Miura ended up bloody. There were some pretty believable nearfalls on Okamura. Aoyagi got revenge on everyone on the floor multiple times. It ended a double countout. Everything on this show has hit the marks so far even if the marks for each match were very different.

PAS: Put some dudes in Ki's in 90s indy puro, I am seated. Mirua and Aoyagi are guys who worked a ton as both a tag team and opponents and just slide right into their shtick, which is a great shtick full of straight punches spin kicks and recklessness. We get some cool chair shots where the seat flies off, some nunchucks and blood. I am not sure this match was much higher then the floor for these four guys, but the floor is super high 

Shinichi Nakano vs. Kamikaze

MD: Of guys who were regularly featured in late 80s/turn of the 90s AJPW, Nakano is the least inspired of his generation. He's the Steve O of the era, and watching some of his mid-90s indie work, he had very little to offer the scene except for maybe a meat and potatoes throwback feel which served as contrast to the other styles flying around. Maybe there was something comforting about that? 

This was straightforward as could be, down to a shine/heat/comeback structure you don't even usually get in Japan. He worked the leg early, really bullying Kamikaze. Kamikaze came back as if the leg had never been worked on at all and hit a number of mid level moves like DDTs or things treated mid-level like a Superplex, building to a top rope 'rana near fall. He tried another 'rana but got power bombed and Nakano came back. They traded things a bit. Nakano got a nearfall with his powerslam and won it with a Nothern Lights. It was fine but fine looked paltry in comparison. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Tatsuo Nakano

MD: Very weird (to me, at least) to have both Nakanos on the show. We've seen 96 Shinichi vs Fujiwara and while that was fine, I'm very glad to see the more DVDVR coded Nakano against him here. They have Mr. Takahashi from NJPW refereeing this. 

Nakano has come so far from where he was in 1989. He was able to utilize his size advantage to control with holds, not just to try for big bombs and an early win. If he had followed that track, he'd wear down Fujiwara and conserve his own energy instead of the other way around.

But Fujiwara wasn't going to let him do that. There's a point in almost every Fujiwara match where he gets his opponent to "break." It's one of the most fascinating and interesting things in the history of pro wrestling. Here he peppered in headbutts, launched elbows from the ground, and even rode Nakano's back in a way that did little damage but was borderline humiliating.

And Nakano did break, slapping Fujiwara down, hitting a suplex. He went back to holds, a choke from behind, but the die had been cast. The tension then becomes whether or not Fujiwara gambled properly. Did he unleash something he couldn't counter or control or was everything part of a complicated chess game with Fujiwara sitting five moves ahead. 

In this case, as with most cases, Fujiwara was the master. He escaped the choke a few times and eventually Nakano swiped at him once again. Fujiwara dodged it and locked in the armbar and that was it. Ten moves to one, but the one was all that mattered.

PAS: Very cool structure. It felt like Fujiwara remembered the hothead Nakano of 7 years before, who could be counted on to blow his top and make a mistake, while Nakano seemed determined to be patient, use his size and keep his cool. Fujiwara can bring it out of you though, and while Nakano was able to keep it together for a while, eventually he fell into the trap. The thing about Fujiwara is he is always moments away, he can take a beating, get worked over, seem out of it, but make one mistake, lose focus once, and you are done, and eventually Nakano made that mistake.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 10/12 - 10/18 Part 2

AEW WrestleDream 10/17/26

Jon Moxley vs Mark Davis

MD: I'm writing this about a week after the PPV. I just saw the match. The way AEW PPVs usually work for me is that I get to watch the first hour or so before I have to take care of some parental duties and I usually just catch the rest over the next few days. Which I did for WrestleDream, including the Tailgate Brawl which I thought was a great, varied show.

But I held off on Mox vs Davis. I knew it was going to be heavy. I had to be ready for it. Then they went and ran a big angle on Dynamite and I knew that I should see this before that and long story short, I caught it today.

Part of the hesitance was that I knew it'd be heavy and I had to feel up for it, sure, but part of it was that I knew I'd be compelled to write about it and I don't know how to deal with Mox.

When I wrote about Cassidy vs Mox on the PAC tribute show, I did it as sort of an alternate reality Mox, a difference in perception and perspective. That was fine for a one time thing. It would not do this match justice.

The problem is one of sensitivity and appropriateness and is ingrained with the nature of pro wrestling and what makes it unique and special.

I imagine if you're reading this, you've read other things I've written about Mox. I love writing about the character of Jon Moxley. He entered into a pact with Bryan Danielson to shape the future, and then, for any number of reasons (call it a mid-life crisis; call it seeing what Roman was doing over on the other channel and feeling like he was falling behind; call it dissatisfaction with how things had turned out; call it envy over Bryan being champion and Moxley not), he crossed a line and didn't look back. 

I saw him as a hypocrite, a villain, a tyrant, holding the AEW Men's World Title hostage for the better part of a year and putting the company under siege. 

And that meant he became really, truly interesting once he lost the title and then had to deal with the weight of what he created. He had a bandit legion who needed victories and plunder, mouths to feed lest they turn upon him. He ran from Darby's revenge, was on his back foot against Kyle, yet through dogged desperation and a few dice rolls going his way, he won the Continental Classic. 

Food on the table. It let him spout empty platitudes (or full platitudes that he himself said in the light but then refused to follow in the dark), let him play the gallant knight and warrior once again. All the way through mentoring Ospreay, losing at All Out, and so on.

He was an emperor with no clothes, Fagin with his Artful Dodger, a demagogue pulling the wool over the eyes of his army and the fans, but never over himself, never truly.

He never had that peace. He always knew deep down it was a lie. And in part, that's because he never truly paid the price, never was betrayed. In a world where corruption rules and consequence is fleeting, this fictional character never got his comeuppance, not really. 

I've written a lot about it. You know how I feel. Right? Great. 

So here's where we stand. The divide between the people portraying pro wrestlers and the pro wrestlers themselves is much thinner than in other forms of media. If an actor dies tragically, their character is written off in the show, often in a way that makes the most sense for the plot. 

The character of Jon Moxley is clearly carrying the weight of tragedy. The way things played out in his backstage segment. The way this match played out. The death of PAC (of Ben) weighs on him. If this had happened on a television drama, you could put the onus on the character of Jon Moxley, make it so  Mox's actions led to the death of the character of PAC (not Ben), that it was his comeuppance, that it was the spiritual cost for everything he did. That would make this match make sense, would tie together the story, would give everything a cathartic path forward. It would be good fiction and I do think it's what many TV dramas might do. 

But the divide is so thin in pro wrestling that you can't do that. You can't suggest that. Ben was PAC and PAC was Ben and Jonathan Good is Jon Moxley and Jon Moxley is Jonathan Good. They are but they aren't but they are. I can't suggest that. I won't. I won't engage with it that way. It's terrible. I'm not going to write about that story, no matter how powerful it might be, and no matter how well it fits the heartfelt performance that Moxley gave. It's clearly what drove the performance.

So I don't entirely know how to deal with this otherwise. 

But I am going to try.

Jon Moxley hit rock bottom. It was cumulative. It was based, in large part, on his actions over the last year and a half. He had been running past consequences, past life and death itself, had been wrestling not through it, but past it. So long as he never looked down, he never fell, not really. He'd convinced the world, but never himself. And that was fine, because he thought he could run forever. He couldn't. The weight, both perceived, and so, so very real, had finally dragged his head down. He looked down. He fell.

And when you hit rock bottom, sometimes you find a monster at the bottom of the pit waiting for you. That monster was Mark Davis. 

Mox is a canny beast himself, especially with his back against the wall. This wasn't the first time in the last year he was in a tough situation. He came out there ready to survive. He was used to bullying his opponents. He couldn't bully Mark Davis. That's fine. He could out wrestle him. 

But he couldn't. Davis was too strong. He was able to snatch a limb and turn Mox's grip back around. Just like that. 

That was fine too. Mox would just go meaner and dirtier. 

But he couldn't. Davis was too strong. He was willing to go just as mean. Just as dirty. Moxley got a few shots in, but Davis struck back, and one of his shots was worth five of Mox's. Davis has a way of channeling that strength to hit you from odd angles. A clothesline while you're laying down, a half crab over a guardrail, the cross section of bestial power and opportunistic creativity. 

So Moxley bled. He was used to making his opponents bleed. Here he bled. The visuals were striking. Moxley retreated to the floor multiple times, and he laid there, blood dripping off his head onto the mat. When dragged back into the ring, white ring ropes found themselves adorned in crimson. Davis' chest was much the same. 

Moxley had bled before though. Maybe he'd never been in this exact situation, had never made it all the way to the bottom, but he had been low before. He was resilient, determined, dogged. He came back as he had come back so many times before. 

And Davis put him down. Hard. Pile driver on the apron hard.

Mox sat in his own blood, back against the guardrail as the referee tried to convince him to get back into the fight. He was done. He was spent. It was over. 

Until it wasn't.

The Continental Title means no one at ringside, no interference, but then, as the last grains of sands were slipping down in the hourglass that was Jon Moxley, hope hit him like sunlight rising in the east.

Marina Shafir. Daniel Garcia. Not at ringside but behind the rail, inspiring him as he had inspired them.

For so much of the last two years, Jon Moxley did not practice what he preached. That's what made him a villain. 

But those things that he preached were often good things, had value. That's why he was so dangerous. They were complicated like any other big ideas, but growth through adversity, through combat, through struggle. Those can be very valid things.

He helped reward Marina Shafir's hard work and determination with opportunity. He picked up Daniel Garcia after his opportunity had faded to dust. He offered them what they needed. Perhaps the act was self-serving in intention. But the act was still the act.

That's the thing about wrestling through it. About fighting through it. About doing the deed, day after day after day after day. It adds up. Intention doesn't matter nearly as much as outcome. 

That had worked against him when the Death Riders were formed and he claimed grand things and then committed horrific ones. But as Continental Champion, it worked for him. He was still the Jon Moxley who had ended Bryan Danielson's career, but now he was doing valiant things week in and week out. 

If you do the right thing for long enough, then you too start to become right in doing it. Consistency of action matters most of all.

He had hit bottom. It wasn't due to a betrayal (though that would come later). But he had hit bottom, and now, baptized in a pool of his own blood, Jon Moxley was reborn. 

The Mox that reentered the ring wasn't a bullshit artist, wasn't an emperor with no clothes. He was the Ace, the Wild Thing. He had lived among the beasts, dragged himself, his people, the company, through the mud, committed acts that could never be taken back, but one step after the next, he was fighting through it, wrestling through it, clawing and grasping his way back towards the light, buoyed by those who he had both led and misled, who were better than him, and that reminded him of the better him that he had once been.

He redirected Davis and made him bleed. He moved with precision and focus. He ducked under a clothesline so perfectly and hit the Death Rider. He went for the Brutalizer, but had the grace and focus (a burgeoning inner peace) to shift positions and put on a choke. And then he didn't let go. He squeezed like his life depended on it, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and he let out all of the fury and grief and emotion within him.

And he won. He had made it through, not through all of it, because we're never through all of it and he will carry that weight forever, but he made it through the match, through this first step of dealing with his own grief, and I think, through the first huge step of coming back to the man he once was. Inspired by those he inspired, he lived up to his own myth and he won the day.

It was a bloody, heavy, heartwrenching match, full of physicality and emotion. It was probably one of the best matches AEW has ever put on because it was one of the realest and deepest matches possible. It was about things that are real and true and human, things that pro wrestling can tackle, but that it usually does not. And they executed it perfectly in their own way.

Rarely do matches have a thesis statement. This one did. The only way out is through. To me, the character of Jon Moxley had so much more to get through than beating Mark Davis, and even so much more than the events of the last month. He had to get through the last two years, through even more than that, through a lifetime maybe. And I have every reason to believe he's going to spending the rest of his life finding his way through. But I also have every reason to believe that he's going to make it. That's what Aces do. And no one in the world could honestly watch this match and deny him that title.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jumbo! Yukari! Chigusa! Lioness!

Volume 5   

8. 1984 New Year's Marathon

K: This is a cut from a much longer segment of AJW doing various activities for New Year. Here it feels like a spiritual sequel to the first segment of the set, in that it’s mostly wrestlers running :) I also think it fits the overall vibe of 80s AJW in feeling like wholesome fun for the most part, then there’s an ominous bit of foreboding at the end…

Oh and a bit of trivial, there’s a wrestler in the race almost no one will recognise called Masami Yagishita. She retired very soon after this, and later resurfaced as a referee in JWP. She’s still on the scene now as referee Tommy.

Addendum

Bonus: Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Jumbo Hori & Yukari Omori (WWWA Tag Team Titles) 1/4/84

K: This is the biggest of the bonus matches. The one which I had the toughest time deciding whether to include it or not, and still think I may have got it wrong. The reasons for inclusion are very strong. It's the first Crush Gals title shot we have footage of (they had another title shot against the Dynamite Girls of 8/27/83, but we don't have that one), it's a very good match, some think great. It also apparently did a great TV rating, and is part of the story of how they ended up becoming such a strongly pushed act.

Reasons against? Firstly, it's really long. I'd have to cut out two others matches to include it (I was giving myself time limits to not push people's patience), and I couldn't pick two matches from this Volume to remove without thinking nah, it's not worth the price. Secondly, we only have a little over half the match, so it's hard to assess it. I wouldn't give it a rating for instance. Thirdly, we're going to have another Crush Gals vs. Dynamite Girls match soon, so it's not like we're missing this match-up entirely.

The bonus matches volume was basically made so I could include this somewhere. So let's go. I'm going to start by absolutely BURYING Yukari Omori's terrible outfit for her entrance. Why is she dressed in a zebra-fur giant sports bra thing. Who on Earth thinks that's a good look? 

The crowd are loud and seem to be cheering for both teams, but Crush Gals clearly have more support. We get a pretty heated bit of argy-bargy before the introductions. Crush Gals did something similar with Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki back in November before their match, so it's a bit illuminating to see that they did this for a babyface vs. babyface match too. Dynamite Girls don't come across as heelish here, both teams are being equally aggressive.

I don't remember ever seeing a match start like this. Crush Gals get jumped, and immediately get put into... double sharpshooters? It's the kind of spot you'd expect to see in the middle of a match where the babyfaces embarrass the heels for a bit. But in this context, it seemed to convey that Crush Gals are the less experienced team and need to level up quick if they aren't gonna get steamrolled by the (relatively) veteran pair.

Next segment of interest. Chigusa gets isolated by the Dynamite Girls and they focus their attacks on her right arm. Chigusa is really expressive in her selling and trying to struggle out of things, even if she can't get much offense. They milk this a bit, could have milked it a bit more imo (especially since they're going long) as this was good stuff. It gets wrapped up quickly though when Chigusa rolls to the outside to get her shoulder bandaged, then gets back in the ring, does a quick comeback with an enzuigiri, gets the hot tag to Asuka and before you know it Asuka's got the pin to take the 1st fall looking as strong as Goldberg.

Good set up, abrupt payoff. I don't think having Asuka look so strong like that served the narrative well. It would have worked better if her getting that pin was more flukey. Coz that's how the Dynamite Girls react. They're mad and really throw themselves at it and things feels more like a brawl in the 2nd fall. They make some mistakes too. Jumbo allows herself to get put in the sharpshooter by Chigusa, but Omori isn't having it, walks over and just breaks it up without regard for the rules and then hits Chigusa with a big top rope dive to the outside for good measure. Even worse is a bit later though, when she hits Chigusa with a guillotine legdrop where she's just lands right on her face. Take that you little punk.

It feels a bit harsh considering it was Asuka who got the pin and not Chigusa, yet she's barely got any focus. But nevermind. When Asuka does get in she also puts Jumbo in a sharpshooter, and Omori also comes over to break it up by repeatedly smacking Asuka in the face looking very mad. But it has no effect on Asuka and she just keeps the hold locked in, she's just that much stronger than Chigusa. I respect that that's the narrative they're going for, but it does result in a match where Chigusa is the one carrying the narrative and Asuka's role is really just to tag in for a little while, kick ass and then tag out for Chigusa to mostly get beat up again. I don't think they get the balance right.

Chigusa is pinned at the end of the 2nd fall with a big 2nd rope powerslam from Jumbo Hori. At the start of the 3rd fall her selling is awesome. I might say, Mimi Hagiwara-esque. She even has wet hair for some reason, echoes of the 1/4/82 tag. The moment I saw her like that I can feel my blood pumping.

The big change in the 3rd fall is that Lioness Asuka drops being the Goldberg hot tag and contributes a lot more. Certainly on the selling side, it's her turn to get isolated and beat up now. We see a lot of great offense here. At one point the Dynamite Girls do a Demolition Device style move on Asuka, except Jumbo Hori does a big flying crossbody off the top. Soon afterwards (a bit too soon maybe, but it's hard to say with all the clipping), Jumbo is on the receiving end of a side suplex off the turnbuckle. She takes the bump like a champ (well I guess she is one). Chigusa does a crafty little riling up of the crowd while she's on the apron here, but this is Asuka's fall and she uses her strengths well to make this fall the most exciting one. She can work a crazy high-octane pace like no-one else except Jaguar, even when she's getting repeatedly dropped on her head. She also very well conveys being an overly-intense jock super athlete who just wants to win no matter what, but wants to win fairly. 

Doesn't happen though. The 60 minute time limit elapses without a decision in the 3rd fall, so we have a draw. First time there's been a 60 minute draw in AJW since the Rimi Yokota-Yumi Ikeshita match on 8/8/80 AFAIK. These certainly can be effective when used sporadically and it certainly seems to have done the job here. I won't rate this because of so much being clipped out, but it was an enjoyable watch.

MD: It’s funny. I know the boom period is right around the corner and I am expecting to love it, but I am going to miss 1983. Jaguar and Mimi as the lead babyfaces. The Dynamite Girls as the lead tag team. Devil teaming with Tarantula and then Yamizaki. Chigusa, Lioness, Tateno all on the rise. Ripper back in for a run. Galactica bursting onto the scene and then gone again. Yu and Matsumoto asserting themselves on the outside. We’re missing a lot of footage, but I enjoyed the year. I guess that means I’m probably going to really enjoy what’s coming. We have to get there first, and we start with the team of 83 and the team of 84 facing off against one another for the tag titles.

This is a remarkable match, even if we can’t fully wrap our heads around it. I honestly don’t know what was cut. I presume it was a bunch of holds and feeling out and I don’t even know. It’s a pretty clever series of cuts. There were a lot of moves here, a lot of stuff, some tandem offense from the Crush Gals, like a belly to back reverse elbow drop, a spike power bomb, a spike pile driver. Omori used the fireman’s carry gutbuster a couple of times. Jumbo at one point hit her power bomb, rocket launcher, front tombstone sequence. Big stuff. There was also more martial arts type kicks, and not just from Chigusa. What we didn’t see however, were the Dynamite Girls using their finishing sequence. When they did hit their big moves, they were broken up more than usual. 

The Crush Gals controlled for a lot of what was kept. I wonder how intentional THAT cutting was? Probably me being a conspiracy theorist? Maybe it just worked out that way. Despite that, the Dynamite Girls came out as the original aggressors and things did absolutely spill out to the floor violently and chaotically at the end. 

The other big takeaway was just how worn out and worn down Chigusa seemed as the match wore down. She was already excellent at portraying that deep deep selling where it affects her down to the soul.

So those are big takeaways. The biggest though?

From what I’ve been able to see, they had pushed the Crush Gals so hard over the last few months. They were equal against Jaguar and Devil teams, even beating Jaguar’s team at least once. Asuka had some amazing athletic exchanges against Jaguar. She beat Monster Ripper and Yamazaki in a two on one match somehow. 

And it was working. The crowd was starting to change. Mimi, the Dynamite Girls, Jaguar, all had fan clubs that seemed to be made of high school boys. They may still have been there but they had been invaded by a small encroaching legion of young girls with paper bullhorns chanting Asuka over and over again. The tide was shifting and nothing would ever be the same. 

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Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 7: vs. The Mississippi Mauler Jim Harris

Week 7

Big Daddy vs. “The Mississippi Mauler” Jim Harris 3/13/82

MD: This is probably not the best use of one of my 15 matches but it’s Kamala! We’ve seen him in Germany in the start of the 80s as Big Jim Harris and against the right opponent he really did have a lot to offer. He could have had an entire career never becoming Kamala and he still would have probably done pretty well for himself. 

This is interesting because it was set up as best two-out-of-three arm wrestling with a match to follow. I had picked this, in part, due to the length of the clip (just under ten minutes), but I realize now more than half of it will be the arm wrestling. That’s okay though, because you clearly can learn something from such things. You learn a ton about a wrestler from how they participate in the side bits, be it a worked weightlifting angle or boxing or this. It’s all about how they work it. 

And here Daddy worked it just like he works everything else. He let Harris take over to start, building up that sense of vulnerability and then thudded him down to a big pop. This was two-out-of-three. It made sense that Harris would do something cheap to win in the second right? But that bit of vulnerability Daddy always showed in one way or another never got to the point of real true heat and danger. It was always safe. Always reassuring. I could make some sort of parallel that the declined empire Brits wanted just a tiny bit of terror, a little bit of that (ultimately safe and sanitized) Doctor Who “hide behind the couch” sensation and then to have their fears reassured in the most definitive way possible. But that seems a bit too much for this project. 

Still…

Well, anyway, that bit of peril that Daddy experienced in the first would be the whole of it. For the second (which Harris decided he wanted to be on the other side of the table on which was a good bit of heeling, making excuses), he pressed Harris’ hand down quickly, only for Harris to pull away and stand up at the last second, complaining on the mic for all the ills of the world and how they were Daddy’s fault.

The match itself was just a few minutes and yes, a bit of peril up front with Harris putting on a headlock. The whips would soon start, back and forth and back again, the big boom stuff that was made possible by the smaller ring (I assume it’s smaller. It may just be that Daddy’s bigger, but it’s really just a few steps from corner to corner with the way these guys moved). There was a moment of Harris missing the hand at one point which didn’t quite make things seem more organic in a way a slip like that might. The waterwheel back drop pancake looked pretty exceptional however, and Harris (selling quite well with spasms and attempts to move) couldn’t beat the count after that. The crowd, of course, was elated. 

The criticism is, as always so far, that if Daddy gave just a little more, then things would have seemed more gripping in his victory, but perhaps they would have felt less safe and even, on some level, less triumphant and monumental, less larger than life. Which again, gives things that short Goldberg or JYD feel. That is, of course, not to say that he didn’t show vulnerability at all. He just did it in a very measured, and I think given the patterns, self-conscious way. Was it because he was afraid to be more vulnerable or because it worked and appealed to his audience? That I’m not sure of, but to say that he didn’t give at all would be a mistake. Overall, this was worth including because it showed that the act could transfer into connected elements like arm-wrestling while still being incredibly consistent and undeniably effective, if, perhaps, too hesitant and conservative.

ER: Look at The Mississippi Mauler in his beautiful red and white poncho, a look so strong that I can see a world where he's a major star even without playing a godless savage. There's just something about a cool black guy wearing a poncho like he's in an Italian western. It's like the first time I saw Bounty Hunter Brian Keith making his way to the ring in a poncho, how much aura he had...before I saw him wrestle. Mauler has his sick poncho, he didn't need a cheap tactic such as letting a deathly ill girl accompany him to the ring, like Daddy. This girl's dying wish was to accompany Daddy to the ring and well...okay that's very sweet and I love that it happened. 

I love a good arm wrestling angle and Mauler is great at what makes arm wrestling angles so good: The Bullshit. My favorite is him refusing to sit in the chair closest to him, rightly suspecting there's some foul play and insisting on sitting in Daddy's seat. When he loses the first (of 3!) arm wrestling falls, that's when he demands to switch seats back. Perfect. Pulling away from a loss, kicking the table away, logging off PSN just as you're about to lose a game, that's the behavior I want to see when there's arm wrestling in a wrestling ring. Mauler gets on the mic and talks about how arm wrestling isn't what he was here to do, pro wrestling is how he plies his trade. It's so great to demand certain rules, and the second you're about to lose under those rules, gaslight the people into thinking nobody was even here to DO arm wrestling. We're here to wrestle, I don't even know what this tiny table is doing here, we're supposed to be PRO wrestling. 

I loved their deeply sunk collar and elbow tie ups. I'm not sure I've seen someone go after Daddy so directly. We've all seen the shoulderblocks and the belly bumps but a direct collar and elbow, strength to strength, is rare. This is a good one, with Mauler widening his base, forcing Daddy to widen his own, both men in a heavy lean so you can really see Daddy's big belly sagging down between his legs. Daddy shoves off each time, with Mauler pounding his chest like King Kong, leaping and stomping and hopping, as much to intimidate as to celebrate that he locked up with Daddy and is still standing tall. 

Big Daddy's Irish whips remain among the strongest looking I've seen. Mauler is huge but I can't say I've ever seen Kamala run so fast as when Daddy whips him back and forth into the buckles. And boy do we get to see him whipped into the buckles. Is it just because Kamala is so young here? We have the German footage where he's even younger, but Germany didn't really have a lot of "running" in their heavyweight ring style. It was a lot slower, a lot more walking. Mauler should be thanking the turnbuckles, because they were the only thing stopping him here. He was whipped so hard, that the ropes went slack and ringside technicians were required to hold the whole rigging into place as the Mauler kept hitting the buckles. 

And my god does Daddy's waterwheel absolutely CRUSH Mauler. I watched it back several times and it looks like Daddy lands full weight on Mauler's face, and Mauler starts sputtering and convulsing, lying there looking like Keith David after taking Roddy Piper's worst. I've more often seen Daddy roll it off to the side, but here he just flattens the Mauler's face and even with fight in him, no man was meant to stand up from that. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/12 - 10/18

AEW Collision 10/14/26

Darby Allin vs Hechicero 

MD: Darby Allin pinned Hechicero in 14:10 to qualify for Clockwork Carnage after hitting two Coffin Drops on Hechicero, who was returning to the ring after both men were wiped out by a spectacular Coffin Drop from the top to the floor. Darby sold his leg during the match with Hechicero targeting it and took some of his usual big bumps. The crowd was tired but went up for the big moments and counters. **** 1/4.

So that's a review, right? I put it together quickly. It's not bad for posterity purpose. It tells you in broad strokes what happened. Darby won. Darby qualified. It was a little less than 15 minutes. It more or less had the crowd. There was a big dive at the end. Darby sold the leg. There were some counters. You look at this twenty years from now and you theoretically have some sense of what happened. You missed the show because you don't watch Collision (even after Dynamite) and you have some sense of what happened. What. You even have a quantitative sense of how good it is. 

But look at what it leaves out.

This was a qualifier match, yes. It was the last one. Darby had survived Kyle Fletcher in Paris the previous week and followed that by climbing a mountain, because of course he did. His leg was bandaged up. Hechicero smelled blood. This was his first AEW appearance since August where he lost a Continental Cup match to Nigel.  Hechicero, is of course, the CMLL Heavyweight Championship. It hasn't exactly been a satisfying reign. There was the poorly received Eddie match. There was a three way at Aniversario. It's not like he's been able to defend it on AEW TV either, despite being a Don Callis Family member.

People complained, for good reasons and bad, that this finish was not exactly up to chance. Darby's more of a draw in the main event of a PPV, even as a role player among other main eventers, than Hechicero is. Though maybe you don't elevate wrestlers without taking chances on them sometimes. But then AEW is run by a stats guy, even if he's one who's prone to sentiment like any other pro wrestling fan. 

Look at the situation though. Hechicero had a chip on his shoulder. Darby had a bum leg. We should care about the destination but only in so much as it informs the journey. We care about where they're going. We care even more about how they get there. Otherwise, what's the point of actually watching? Why not just run a simulation. The art is in how they choose to get from point A to point B and how they then execute that plan. 

And this match was incredibly artful and dramatic, even if the outcome was never entirely in doubt.

Hechicero was, as noted, like a shark smelling blood, stalking Darby to start. He didn't go right for the leg, but instead used Darby's need to protect it to twist at the arm and the neck. Darby tried to use his legs to kick back to escape one situation, but in his selling, he was slowed down enough that Hechicero was able to catch him on a leapfrog and drive him down knee first to the mat. He followed that up with a rear roll on a tapitia (then dropping Darby right on his knee) which all looked particularly brutal. It was a creative leveraging of Darby's flexibility, certainly.

The match would follow along those lines. When able, Hechicero would target the leg. That might be a reverse dragon screw with the leg dangling off the apron or just tying it up and twisting it, making sure to mock Darby and the crowd after the fact. When Darby found a way to edge back (primarily biting at the hand until his comeback later in the match), Hechicero would cut him off with more holistic and opportunistic offense. Darby couldn't capitalize further because of the leg. He'd get a jackknife pin but then would sell the leg by hopping on it losing leverage, or when he did get leverage, like after a reversal of a rear naked choke, his leg gave out after the fact, a cost/benefit decision that did not work out in his favor.

When he did finally start to come back, it was by letting Hechicero do the heavy lifting for him, he turned the conjuro spinning backbreaker into a crucifix bomb. The crowd started chanting for him after that, and he deserved it. He made it to the top for a 'rana, but only by reversing Hechicero's attempt to dangle him in a choke while sitting on the top rope. He followed that up with a Code Red, another move where he barely needed to put any pressure on his leg, and then trapped Hechicero in the apron to set up the tope and top rope coffin drop to the floor that would lead things to the finish. 

The story here was the color, variety, meanness, and adaptability of Hechicero's offense, and then how Darby's selling met the moment. It wasn't done to just check boxes. It limited his opportunities and created a cost for everything he tried to do. It impact not just what he did but how he moved, the best sort of selling. Meanwhile, Hechicero wasn't dogmatically just going after the limb, but instead meeting every moment for the possibilities available. Sometimes that meant going after something else to open the leg back up or because Darby was overly protecting it. That's a fascinating sort of pro wrestling, one where the moments truly do matter.

I did see complaints about the finish and how it was a copy of other Darby matches this year. I think the way he takes the wind out of an opponent is both opportunistic and logical and much more about the set up. How does he get them in that position in the first place? That's what's compelling more than the Coffin Drops themselves. Here it was by using Hechicero's moves as a way to position himself to hit something and then to throw his body at him when he had the chance. 

Where I do question it, however, is the need to have a pin in the first place. I'd argue that Hechicero was protected to a degree because he did beat the count and was simply ambushed on the way back in the ring, but with all the Champion vs Champion matches in AEW, they should lean into the 70s aesthetic and have some countouts or double countouts now and again. I can hear people grumbling already, but it's been so long  since this was a common part of pro wrestling, there's a chance to reframe and reclaim it. It's a tool like any other tool and in a CMLL Heavyweight Champion vs TNT Champion match, a finish where Darby just barely makes it back and and Hechicero doesn't could actually be compelling. Certainly, it'd make those finishes where both wrestlers make it back in a little more exciting to do the opposite now and again. A match like this where everyone more or less knew the winner coming in could have been a great place to switch things up and do it.

So that's the match. You could have covered the bare bones of the what like that first paragraph. You could just focus on the outcome and how many matches Darby won or lost this year and how many more you think he should have won or lost. Or you could lean into the third option and really try to immerse yourself in the art being created, in the excitement being generated, in details worth delving through. 

We've spent generations doing the one or the other, but I think everyone would be so much happier with the third.

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Found Footage Friday: 1986 UWF SUPERDOME EXTRAVAGANZA '86

UWF Superdome 6/14/1986    

One Man Gang vs. Brett Sawyer

MD: Brett Sawyer is the king of Vault footage and here he is again with another really good performance. Well, a glimpse at one. Only so much you can do in a couple of minutes, but the cat and mouse at the start was spirited and effective with all the build and payoff you'd want as he built to a two hands-on-one test of strength only for Gang to crush him in the corner. Much of the rest of the match was Gang hamhocks coming down on him. Occasionally Sawyer tried to get shots to the legs in to no avail, but the effort was appreciated. Things finally went to the floor and Gang got DQed using some chairs. Back in the ring more crushing as the fans stomped in rhythm for anyone to make the save (no one did). This accomplished what it set out to do.

Robert Gibson vs. Baron Von Raschke

MD: It's always surreal to see Von Raschke in weird settings bumping without bending as he was want to do. Morton's up against Flair second from the top (we don't have that match) and Gibson's here on the undercard against the Baron. Fans were behind him but more in a general sense. After a quick shine, meat of the match was an armbar where the Baron kept going for a hairpull and it was fine but it didn't really get any extra heat. There's probably a different crowd where this match would work in front of but here, they just went up for the goosestepping and the claw attempt. Gibson blocked it, which was moderately dramatic stuff and then after Baron tossed him, he turned a slam attempt from the outside in into a small package for the win. Certainly not the best match we've seen out of the vault this year.

Koko B. Ware vs. Jack Victory

MD: This felt way bigger than you'd think. Victory had Mad Maxine with him and Koko had Dark Journey (babyface). Another weird pairing or set of pairings but they'd built it with Maxine bullying Journey. Maxine did not have a long run but she did pop up a number of different places, like Kamala in her own way (Kamala was also on this card vs Link but we don't have that). Florida, Continental, here. An attraction doing attraction things. 

We come in JIP here and the early stuff based around punching is great. Koko has just an awesome flurry to come back and the crowd goes up for it until he crashes and burns in the corner (which also looked great). Then Victory leans on him a bit until Dark Journey comes out, causing a huge pop. We lose the audio to a degree here but can still hear Ross. She's enough of a distraction to let Koko get a snap schoolboy takeover which has an almost power bomb impact to it. Looked great how Victory threw himself back for it. Post-match Maxine and Victory are poor losers but Journey gets big revenge with powder and a low kick and the place goes nuts. I imagine this probably made TV in part at least somewhere as we have commentary but it did feel like a memorable angle and a big deal, even if you wouldn't think Koko and Victory would be the ones involved. You'd almost think it'd be Taylor and Sawyer instead for instance.

Buddy Roberts & Terry Gordy vs. Blade Runners

MD: Hayes was fun on the mic pre-match letting Gilbert know that if he stays out of this, Hayes will stay out of this, but if he doesn't... This is an only time match up between Warrior and Gordy and it's a weird visual, let me tell you. Fun start to this where it's chaos and the ref has to appeal on the mic to Gilbert and Hayes to calm things down. I'm not sure I've ever quite seen that. 

Match itself had a Buddy playing face-in-peril. That meant some bearhugging from Sting, but most of it was Sting and Warrior working together. Lots of quick tags and double teams off the ropes. Eventually Buddy ducked one and Gordy came in to even the sides and he and Warrior crashed into each other with a double clothesline for a very unsatisfying (but still larger than life) double KO as neither met the ten count. 

UWF Television Title: Terry Taylor (c) vs. Buzz Sawyer

MD: This aired on Power Pro but it's likely a footage upgrade with just the crowd noise and we'll cover it. I've read someone recently question why Buzz was used so well by Ole and Watts when he was such a bad person (maybe Ron Starr's book?) but look at how he gave and gave on a big show like this for a guy like Taylor. He tried to lure him in with handshakes to start and got clowned. He got a little advantage and crashed into the turnbuckle. Taylor controlled on the arm for the next few minutes including hitting a big cross body. Buzz only took over because Taylor missed a second one. Then he honed in on the ribs/back because of the miss with bearhugs, basically. Taylor came back but ate the power slam. Buzz missed a top rope splash and lost to a sunset flip, clean. Then he demanded Taylor get back in the ring to have another impromptu match, ambushed him, immediately fed for a comeback, and lost to a quick Thesz press, again, definitively. I imagine one squash the following weekend would wash away any shame from this loss too. But he put over Taylor like a million bucks here. Maybe Taylor won due to Buzz's own mistake but then he won again even more definitively. You get a completely loathsome character who's as talented as Buzz was and that would do business on a big show and it makes sense why the guy got used as well as he did. 

Ted DiBiase vs. Michael Hayes

MD: I really love this pairing, especially when Dibiase is the babyface. Dibiase vs the Freebirds is probably one of my favorite feuds of the 80s honestly. It's a huge testament to Hayes that he could be a de facto babyface earlier against Gilbert and the Blade Runners and then go full on heel here. This starts with some great BS (even if maybe not all appropriate in 2026). Dibiase gets the fans chanting. Hayes moonwalks. He goes to the second rope to preen and Dibiase jumps up to shake the ropes messing with his balance. Criss Crossing ends abruptly with Dibiase putting a fist up and Hayes taking a powder. Hayes tries a cheapshot in the ropes but Dibiase ducks and hits a series of jabs before paying off that big punch. Hayes takes another powder. Hayes hits a bodyslam and struts. He hits an armdrag and shimmies. So Dibiase hits an armdrag and two bodyslams and the fist drop and then after a pause, struts himself closing the parentheses. Perfectly parallel pro wrestling. The fans are into all of it.  

Hayes plays mind games and gets a temporary advantage but misses a kneedrop after a strut. They do some legwork and tease the figure four but that leads to the actual heat which is mostly Hayes leaning on Dibiase's injured neck. It's just a chinlock with a hope spot or two but the fans go up huge for Dibiase firing up. Then they tease a kick with his head down for a back body drop but Dibiase dodges it and goes into his comeback. It was a clever and effective inversion. Finish is very wonky though. He hits the powerslam and goes for the Figure Four but Gordy comes out. Then he power slams him and pins him instead. Ref counts it. Gordy was mostly fresh. He's more foreboding and dangerous than Hayes (despite JR calling Hayes a Charles Manson like figure). If you used Buddy in that role it would have worked a hundred times better even though it would have still been an annoying and illogical bait and switch. Ah well. Post-match they beat on Dibiase and tease the pile driver but Dibiase gets free and gets out the glove to a huge pop as the Birds run away. The good in this was very good but I'm sure people would miss it all because of the finish. 

Street Fight: Bill Watts & Dusty Rhodes & Steve Williams vs. Ivan Koloff & Nikita Koloff & Korstia Korchenko

MD: This is a come as you are street fight. Watts' shirt is too small so he looks like Ricky Morton with the cut off shirt. He had to be aware of this. I do like the idea that the Soviets come in their gear. The Americans are in jeans like normal relatable people (Watts' shirt notwithstanding). The Russians are alien creatures with a broken society that we can't relate to. Etc. It's effective even if seeing these guys in street clothes would have been more entertaining decades later.

I don't have a ton else to say about this one. It's less than ten minutes in and out and mostly chaotic brawling. Dusty and Watts position themselves to save Williams from a double team once or twice. Ivan gets the chain out early and does damage with it. Finish has Gilbert try to intervene with a weapon but (I think) trip on the way in letting Watts get it and the win. Post-match Watts clears house with the chain and then gets to whip Gilbert a bit, but not enough that there isn't more meat on the bone. The one view meant we missed a decent amount of the action and Dusty sort of disappeared because of that in a way I'm not used to. Plus, given the build, this was the Watts' show after all.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Masami! Yamazaki! Jumbo! Yukari!

Volume 5   

7. Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Jumbo Hori & Yukari Omori (Fuji TV Cup Tag Tournament Semi Final) 11/28/83 

K: Sums up the state of 1983 AJW footage that one of the best matches we have is a semi-final match from a tournament where both the other semi-final and the final are missing. On the other hand, it’s great that we have this.

Dynamite Girls are the tag champs (the titles aren't on the line in this tournament), after winning them from Devil Masami & Tarantula in June. Since then Devil's been tagging more frequently with the more junior Itsuki Yamazaki. If I was allowed to retroactively name tag teams I'd call this pairing the Jumping Bomb Devils.

Itsuki gets a bit of a showcase here. At first Devil is assisting with her big jumping moves in a way that it looks like she's using Itsuki as a weapon, but when she's in the ring alone she more than holds her own. She does an unusual move where she pushes Jumbo Hori into the ropes, and when Jumbo rebounds back going backwards, she kicks her in the back. It felt like a backwards Irish Whip? Pro-wrestling physics. 

Devil and Itsuki isolate Jumbo Hori and target her back. There's a really mean moment where Devil has her in her own corner just within reach to make a tag, or at least she would be, if Devil weren't standing on her hands while smirking. The heat builds up a bit and leads to great shift in momentum when Itsuki makes the mistake of going toe-to-toe with Yukari Omori, who shoves her across the ring so hard she almost completely clears it. Yeah go Omori! Her offense is getting better and better. 

When Devil gets in to even things out, she does it by hitting Omori with these big punches where she pulls her elbow back, clenches a big fist for a good couple of seconds to get the crowd's attention, before clocking her with it. It's a good way of building a bit of suspense for the punch and suits her well.

Devil and Itsuki are the heels here, but they're not doing anything especially heelish yet. The main way they garner heat is they're a lot more inclined to double team to get themselves out of predicaments. In the 2nd fall we get a bit of this when they both jump Omori to allow Itsuki to unload dropkicks and take the advantage a bit. Itsuki then pulls Omori outside, presumably for a bit more pummelling, but this is a mistake as it gives Jumbo Hori license to intervene and suddenly Itsuki is getting double teamed herself and thrown onto a table while Devil arrives too late to help her. Bit of just rewards.

Itsuki's just more mad at this, we get a little shout-off between her and the Dynamite Girls, which leads to her throwing Omori into the heel corner for Devil to do a BIG lift and throw down to the floor. The heels take back control after Jumbo is knocked to the outside, and then they do this cool combination move where Itsuki is standing on Devil's shoulders and they hold hands while Devil walks most of the way across the ring before Itsuki jumps off her shoulders for a big splash onto Omori for the pin. Great finish there.

Oh this match is really good and exciting. There's constantly something fun happening and heat just seems to build and build. The crowd are also pretty hot, one of the best crowds we've seen in a while.

Soon into the 3rd fall this has escalated into a crazy brawl. Devil Masami has got out her bokken and is attacking both babyfaces with it. Omori seems angry but incapable of doing anything to stop Devil's ferocious attacks so instead vents her frustration by beating up the referee. This doesn't really help matters. In fact Devil drops the bokken soon afterwards, but is able to finish Jumbo Hori off with a big seated senton off the top rope.

They pulled off having a really heated fight plus lots of cool innovative offense and a fast-pace almost throughout. Classic Zenjo style and a great match. Then they follow it up immediately with a hot angle as the Crush Gals get in the ring, presumably angry about how their fellow finalists got their win. I liked how Itsuki kicks out at the Crush Gals while standing on the apron, looking all aggressive and nasty. It looks like they're about to calm down and they shake hands, exchange words, then suddenly Devil throws a punch at Lioness Asuka and all hell breaks loose! Seconds are rushing the ring as well to separate them, including Tarantula wielding Devil's bokken.

I'm just frustrated now that we can't see the Crush Gals vs. Jumping Bomb Devils tournament final. We just know the Crush Gals won that won.

****

MD: The other semi-final was Crush Gals vs Masked Yu and Tarantula (Crush Gals won). They cut back to Chigusa and Lioness throughout this match as they’re watching on a screen in the back. Lioness is heavily bandaged and looks put upon for most of it. That feels like a theme. I’m pretty sure Devil was taped up and Hori definitely was, her back taped under her gear. 

And it wasn’t just for show. Masami and Yamazaki went after it immediately, heavily focusing their attack. By this point, they’d been teaming for months and Devil was able to assist Yamzaki in bounding about. Some very mean stuff here, both taking it outside and Devil just stepping on Hori’s hands as she taunted Omori. That backfired to a degree as it let Omori come in, but the Dynamite Girls still had to fight their way back (mainly to the Jumbo hot tag) and it wasn’t until Yamazaki missed a senton off the top that they were able to capitalize and pick up the first fall. 

They kept asserting themselves well into the second fall, with Jumbo hitting her fireman’s carry tosses onto Devil and even after Yamazaki came in with lots of dropkicks. They vaulted her over a table on the outside pretty effectively, for instance. But then Devil dropped Omori to the floor from a suplex position. That let her hit this shot off the ropes she was doing in this match (a cross chop I don’t remember them making as big a deal out of previously), Yamazaki to hit her fall away slams, and for them to finish Omori off with a great bit where Devil walked across the ring with Yamazaki on her shoulders to set up a splash.

Third fall was pretty heated. While the fans haven’t quite turned over into whatever they’d become in 84, the Dynamite Girls were more over than they probably get credit for (though I can’t say for certain that Devil/Yamazaki didn’t have supporters by this point either). It looked like they were going to turn things around too. Hori’s transition where she catches someone in a bearhug and then does a twisting slam out of it was very effective dramatically. They twisted things up though. Devil made catch the bearhug twice. Then when she lifted Devil up to the top to pull her off head first as she was want to do, Devil almost got a win with a sunset flip. These sorts of inversions felt new to me. After that, everything broke down with Devil getting her sword and causing chaos. When the smoke cleared, she hit Ikeshita’s old seated senton off the top and got the win. Post match the Crush Gals came out for a staredown and, after a handshake, everything broke down. Unfortunately, we don’t have the finals but this semi felt very iconic for the time and in some ways like it was pushing the needle forward.

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Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 6: vs. The Mighty Quinn

Week 6 

Big Daddy vs. John Quinn 6/27/79

MD: I mentioned cheats last time and this feels a little like a cheat. The match goes 1:30 or so, but it’s worth seeing because of all of the pomp and circumstance. We rarely get to see Daddy in front of a huge crowd like this in a singles match. This was at Wembley Arena, and to watch him come down to the ring surrounded by a mass of people is pretty amazing. Again, I have no connection to this guy but I do have connection to beloved babyfaces and he sure was one. Some kid leaned over as he was passing by to kiss him on his cheek, either to pass him some luck or get some luck. 

While it’s obvious he knew what he was doing and what would get an effect and he leveraged his size and charisma and the SYMBOLIC weight of what he did, there’s also a sense that he’s some guy who wished in a well to be the biggest star in England and everyone just kind of got swept up by the magic. Maybe that WAS part of the magic, that there was something unreal about him, like a… cereal mascot. Like Captain Crunch. Or Popeye the Sailor Man. Again, the world is accessible. Door’s open. Come on in. He’s not going to look down on you. You can leave your worries behind and join this strange, wholesome fantasy. He reminds me here of a Jimmy Valiant, not the sort of guy society is supposed to root for but an absolute folk hero, larger than life yet on paper much “smaller” than what society’s ideal person is supposed to be. 

Quinn was billed from North America, though he was mighty. We’re ROBBED of his Mighty Quinn entrance that we’ve gotten in Germany. He seems a bit smaller here a year or two earlier but maybe that’s because he’s not towering over Bob “UFO” Della Serra. Haystacks, cool as can be in his giant leather jacket, gets on the mic and berates Daddy and the fans are irate. This was a great way to stall the two of them facing, or to break it up, to have Haystacks as “mentor” to an invading Quinn. Daddy was announced as “Accepting the Challenge with Great Joy!” which was a nice touch.

This is pretty fascinating to start because instead of leaning into the shoulder blocks like usual, Daddy just takes them. This feels intentional. It makes it seem like Quinn is stronger and bigger than he is. Usually, Daddy is able to lean in and shove back and here, Quinn hits him even. In all the shoulder blocks I’ve seen Daddy do (and it’s a big part of the act!) in the last five matches before this spanning multiple years, he didn’t just take it like he does here. And it’s not that he’d be taking a night off in front of the huge crowd in Wembley Arena. I’ve seen him enough to think it’s intentional and it was to add in a bit of doubt (Walton was wondering as the bell rang if he could do it). It meant the crowd popped all the more when Quinn whipped him (and again, he moved well) and Daddy crashed through him. 

Quinn responded with a leaping forearm that staggered Daddy, and then a few more for good measure. That drew Daddy’s brother, Brian Crabtree, a fancy-clad off duty referee, to the apron and Quinn rushed over to clock him too. Everyone in the crowd knew what a bad idea that was. Daddy looked out to them and the mood completely changed. Quinn had crossed a line. It was one thing to forearm Daddy in the face, another to attack a bystander, especially a beloved one. Three big vaulting body slams followed (variation: I’ve not seen him really toss someone like this before either). 

This was a ten count death match of sorts. No rounds. No time limit. Quinn beat the count but then got hefted over for the waterwheel backdrop (not the cleanest but that’s ok when Daddy is still landing on the guy). Even Walton lost his cool when the count reached 8, as he got elated with everyone else at what was about to happen. The place erupted. 

I think this would have been unquestionably better if Quinn kept it up for another minute or two even, just a minute or two, a few more forearms, maybe getting Daddy to his knees, maybe having Haystacks tripping him and him going down for a few seconds. Then they could have done the bit with Crabtree, right? But on the other hand, that was completely unnecessary and I’m not sure if the extra heat would have made the end pop better than this sort of justified almost religious instant comeuppance of a bully was. Crabtree took the damage and Daddy meted out the justice. At this stage of the act, in 79, in front of this crowd, maybe that was exactly as vulnerable as he should have been. Just like in the last match with the Emperor (what if the Emperor DID get that sleeper on Daddy instead of his partner McMichael?), what if Quinn didn’t lose focus? What if he didn’t cross such a line and kept it more sporting? Maybe that was enough for people’s imaginations. Clearly it was not just for 79, but for years to come. 

So this is funny, but now it reminds me of Will Ospreay a bit. One big issue with his matches is that it’s impossible to believe that he’s beatable in any way because he’s such a physical specimen and bounces back from everything. The solution has been to have him sell, sell, sell, though he drops it while on offense because he’s just too much, too all-encompassing, too unbeatable. I’ve said it before, but the actual solution is probably to lean into it, steamroll people when it makes sense to, and have him be vulnerable in other ways. That’s very much what they did here with Daddy. Maybe Will Ospreay could learn a thing or two from Big Daddy.

ER: This is the best Big Daddy entrance of the matches we've covered. No comparison We've never gotten such full color crowd level shots of Daddy being swarmed by old British housewives before. It changes everything when you see it. Filming him through the crowd was essential, it captured a fanbase that doesn't exist in any way any longer, which might make all this "who could like Big Daddy?" talk irrelevant. It was them, people you don't know who haven't thought about wrestling in decades, but might still think about Big Daddy. Look at the working class men who can't wait to get a hand on Daddy, to help lift him up onto the ring apron, eight different men all fighting for a chance to get a palm on part of Daddy's belly and ass. Those people are believers. Daddy is in full sequins, an old couple is with him and they are decked to the nines too, and I'm sure the Wembley Arena crowd recognized them. 

But it wasn't just Daddy, it was also Haystacks. Have you seen how incredible Haystacks looked, seconding Quinn? He's mammoth, but wearing clothes like a man. Look how good he looks in his gigantic perfectly fitted fringe jacket and boot cut black Wranchers. That is a look I would sport right this second, without a chance of competing with Haystacks' aura. I blame the 400 or so pounds he has on me, and the fact that I couldn't grab a mic and draw nuclear heat by yelling, "THERE'S STILL TIME TO GO HOME, DADDY!" People saw this as a threat, and it made The Mighty Quinn feel like a real threat. John Quinn is someone Matt and I have written more about than anyone, by virtue of nobody writing about John Quinn. We saw the undervalued asset and Moneyballed the hell out of early 80s Germany that nobody else had interest in. This is before that, and I was shocked by how differently Daddy worked Quinn than anyone else. The way Daddy works Quinn, in a match that barely goes 100 seconds, made nearly 10,000 people believe the impossible may happen. 

Quinn starts the match hitting three shoulderblocks that Daddy absorbs, and doesn't knock back Quinn at all. The next exchange - even though it ends with Quinn pinballed across the ring by a Daddy shoulderblock - doesn't come until Quinn successfully shot Daddy into the ropes. That was huge for me, because I think that's the first time I've seen anyone complete any kind of whip into the ropes without Daddy reversing. Daddy is not someone who gets shot into the ropes off a side headlock, he's a guy who stands firm, widens his base, and cranks the headlock in more snug. When Quinn actually started pounding Daddy with elbows I actually yelped. These were square to the jaw, the first one delivered with a leap, the others hard enough to force Daddy into a deep lean on the ropes. I have watched many Big Daddy matches and you just do not see someone start slugging him while landing several in a row. In many matches he takes no offense at all, so multiple straight elbows to the jaw that send him leaning in the ropes felt like Quinn was landing a combination on Tyson. 

Daddy's brother gets the worst elbow, a running shot across the ring that sent him flying off the apron. When Daddy starts unloading full release bodyslams (throwing Quinn out rather than slamming him down) and crushes him with his waterwheel, the crowd explodes to their feet and actually surges toward the ring. When it was clear Quinn wasn't answering the count, the rush of crowd had an energy that made it feel like the result MAY have been in doubt, which sounds ludicrous in hindsight. Did they actually believe Quinn could beat Daddy? Their reactions in every second of this video seem to say "Yes". 

I wonder if there was any crossover audience who saw both Big Daddy and any of the late 70s Ramones European tours. There has to be someone. On any given night the Ramones would perform at least 10 songs with a runtime similar to this match. Art boiled down to the essentials, one appealing to dead enders and punks, the other appealing to pensioners and the working class. Two mediums, the quickest and most economic delivery system possible, two very different societies. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/5 - 10/11

AEW Dynamite 10/7/26

Darby Allin vs Kyle Fletcher

MD: Darby Allin is an attraction. In all the history of modern televised wrestling, he's one of the only attractions I can think of that wrestled every week. You can argue that peak Goldberg or Rock would be up there. Which is not to say he's an attraction on the magnitude of either. Maybe you could argue Sabu as the closest comparison point. Maybe peak Jeff Hardy as well. Hell, maybe Mistico at either of his peaks too. He's something to see. He's going to do something spectacular. You're going to regret missing it. Wrestling is a three-ring circus and he's in at least two of the rings and the sideshow to boot: the death-defying stuntman riding a motorcycle through fire, the acrobat up on the tightrope, the skeletal geek who can survive incredible amounts of pain.

There's been some pretty tedious discourse the last few weeks about how well he's been protected this year too. Yes, Darby wins a lot. Yes, he survives a lot. But the attention to detail is almost there. We'll get to that at the end of this one. Wrestling is more than just stats on a spreadsheet. It's more than wins and losses. Wins and losses matter, but they only matter in so much as the journey matters too. With Darby, the whole point is HOW he wins, HOW he survives, HOW he overcomes the odds. That's what makes wrestling worth watching. He's protected so that the emotional tether is there when he somehow survives. He's protected so when someone actually figures out a way to put him down, it matters more. 

Some fans today seem to want fairness and parity. But there have to be stars and the stars have to be protected. It's not what someone deserves. It's about what moves hearts and minds, and if you're not letting yourself go along with a story because you're more worried about some wrestler getting what they deserve, you're doing both the wrestlers (including that wrestler) and yourself a disservice. The effort has to be there. The level of detail has to be there. But at some point you have to open yourself to go on the journey they're trying to take you on. Maybe you'll like the ride, maybe you won't, but if you constantly want to be on another ride instead, then you're never going to enjoy yourself unless you get exactly what you want, and trust me, that gets real old real quick.

So the question then becomes How. How does Darby Allin overcome? And what makes it interesting is the variance in opponents, a variance made all the more interesting by Darby's specific skills and his specific weaknesses. His deficits. And how some of his strengths end up being deficits as well. 

Styles make fights, sure, but so do body types and disparities between wrestlers. You put Darby up against a Mark Davis or Jake Doyle or Wardlow or Brody King and he has different challenges and different opportunities than if you put him up against a Kevin Knight or Myron Reed. The former may be explosive at times, but they are bigger, stronger, quick but not nearly as quick as Darby. The latter can't leverage a huge strength advantage against him but Darby can't outquick them either.

Kyle Fletcher presents a unique threat for Darby though, and that's what made this interesting. Kyle is strong, yes, muscular as can be, but he's also relatively lean compared to the mentioned monsters. He's quicker than them, not as quick a Darby but quick enough to recover a split second sooner, to be ready to counter. The strength and size advantage isn't as much as the monsters, but it's enough. It gives him an answer to some of the questions that Darby forces upon both the monsters and the flyers and allows him to force plenty of his own upon Darby himself. And those questions are what make pro wrestling interesting (if you allow yourself to engage with them, that is).

Here, Darby came right at Fletcher but Fletcher could push him back. Darby shot himself towards Fletcher instead, but Fletcher was ready to catch him and toss him. It was an ebb and flow, one where Darby had to push himself more and more earlier in the match in order to do damage. he put them both through a table very early on because nothing else was working. He continued to take the risks like he so often does, but Fletcher was better suited to catch him and back body drop him from one announce table to the next. 

Darby is, of course, a cockroach, and with every moment he survives, he finds opportunities to strike. It could be as simple as a line of blood running down Fletcher's back (from that first table break) and Darby running his nails down the spine to counter a top rope move. But again, Fletcher is a uniquely dangerous opponent for him, constantly grasping and straining himself. In this case, as he was getting pulled over, he snatched at the top turnbuckle pad and yanked it off. 

It built to a point of escalation. Darby threw his best shots at Fletcher, hitting him with multiple Code Reds, but when that didn't work and Darby had to escalate further he missed a Coffin Drop on the apron. Fletcher capitalized and hit a Brainbuster, but it wasn't enough. He went up to the top and crushed Darby with the Avalanche Brainbuster onto the exposed turnbuckle. That was, perhaps overkill. The effort not only sent Darby out of the ring to the floor (where he could not be pinned for the title) but hurt Fletcher's leg instead. By the time that Fletcher was able to get the bloody husk of Darby Allin back into the ring, it was too late. Darby had recovered just enough to kick out. Attention to detail. It's everything. Yes, Darby survived Fletcher's very well protected finisher but there were any number of mitigating circumstances. This matters. If this doesn't matter, nothing matters, and if nothing matters, then there's no point anyway. Then you're just looking at the spreadsheet and there's no soul to what you're watching. You might as well not watch at all.

Fletcher went for a power bomb. Darby escaped and redirected him face first into the exposed turnbuckle. He honed in on the legs with the Deathlock. Fletcher survived but was vulnerable for two Coffin Drops. People say we've seen the sudden Coffin Drops too much as well, but they almost never work the same way twice. Or they work in multiple different ways appropriate for the moment. That variance matters. Those details matter. I'd argue they're only the same if you list them out on paper. In the moment, in the match, they feel as organic and opportunistic as can be.

Look, you can have favorites. You can hope someone gets pushed. You can even get frustrated that someone you don't want to see pushed is getting pushed (and yeah, I get that Darby has some historical personal issues but most of the arguments I am countering are not people talking about that, but instead about ANY wrestler being protected as a bad thing, a desire for parity, and his finishing sequence). That's all valid to a degree. But it's also something completely outside of your control. We've had one Yes Movement in twenty six years of wrestling this decade. 

You should not just eat what they're feeding you. You should be critical. You should question things. You should look for patterns. You can disagree with me. You can disagree with the company. You're not obliged to watch every match. You can pick and choose. It's better if you pick and choose. Trust me. But you should also question yourself and try to figure out why you feel the way that you feel. 

Yes, outcomes should matter. Yes, they shouldn't always be predictable, but pro wrestling has (almost) always been best when there is hierarchy and there are people clearly pushed. Outcomes matter, but the journey matters as much as the destination, maybe even more so because the destination is pre-decided. 

It's the How (... and the Who and the Why and even the Where and the When) that makes pro wrestling interesting, far more so than the What. And the questions around How for Darby Allin continue to be fascinating for me week in and week out. 

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