AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/15 - 6/21

ROH Global Wars Cincinnati 6/18/26 / AEW Collision 6/20/26

Athena vs Syuri / Athena vs Maya World

MD: So, why do we watch?

I've been watching Athena as ROH champion since 2022. In that time, I've seen her defeat Yamashita, Nightingale, Sakura, Sakazaki, Hogan, Starkz, Martinez, Rose, Abadon, Catalina, Persephone, Windsor, and on and on and on, some multiple times. Plus, you might say the heart of the title run, the connective tissue, has been the Proving Ground matches. There have been so many of those. I've seen a lot of Athena. Anyone following ROH has.

So what's the appeal now so deep into the title reign? What made these two matches stand out against everything else last week? 

With some wrestlers, familiarity breeds contempt. You start predicting moves before they happen and while there's a sort of comfort to that, comfort only takes you so far. Athena is the definition of unpredictability. She is volatile, tempestuous. It's at the core of her character and generates the energy that draws you into her matches. But just as important, with Athena, the familiarity you develop gives you a launching point. 

For some wrestlers, it's all about spots and counters. The action drives character. The cart leads the horse. It's all about getting to the big idea with little care on how the match actually gets there. With Athena, character drives everything. Because the character is so good, so dynamic, so engaging, "everything" becomes full of organic, interesting destination points, maybe even more so than those matches that are contrived to get to certain spots. Who she is drives what she does. And she will react differently to every opponent and every situation. 

Knowing her past (encounters and otherwise) with Syuri and Maya made so much difference here. Despite her close connection to Maya as mentor and lack of such with Syuri, there were similarities. Both opponents had gotten the better of her in one way or another, and the list of those who had done so over the last few years is very small indeed. Syuri had successfully defended her IWGP Women's Title against Athena earlier this year. Maya is the one blemish on Athena's ROH singles record, surviving a Proving Ground match. She subsequently took he to the limit in the title match she earned and the Survival of the Fittest that followed. Maya may be billed as the It Girl, but there remains a sense of Final Girl to her as well, the one who might be fated to end the horror that is Athena. It's not quite a prophecy, not quite an inevitability, but it's as clear a possibility as any other right now. And Athena knows it. 

Of course, with Maya there were other factors at play. Her run through the Owen Hart Tournament, a title shot at All In on the line, is a bittersweet Cinderella story. Her brother passed away recently. Despite that, perhaps because of it, she threw herself into her work, becoming a last second substitution for Sareee and defeating Skye Blue to propel her to the semi-finals and to another match-up with Athena. The character of Athena has professed tough love when it comes to her minions. While there always seems to be a self-serving undercurrent to that, it's hard to deny the results, and occasionally, very occasionally, hints of humanity poke out from the monster she's become, though usually only to get swept away by the rage and fury of the fallen goddess. Meanwhile, Athena herself has lost in the semi-finals of the Owen tournament twice. As she carries ROH on her shoulders, she's been unable to reach the highest peaks in AEW. 

And of course, and this would be true if she was facing Shafir or Statlander in main events or Forza or Nixi XS in proving ground matches, Athena is excellent at not just finding the kernels of truth between herself and opponent but in crafting a dynamic character which will create such opportunities in the first place.

It's easy to compare and contrast how these matches played out and see that aspect plain as day. Look at the first few minutes of both. With Syuri, she extended her (yes, left) hand, Syuri took it graciously, Code of Honor met with some respect. Then they went at it, a feeling out process. Athena more than held her own, but Syuri, having the superior confidence and momentum since she won the last match, pressed her advantage. Athena didn't get dominated but she was absolutely on her back foot, forced to be reactive in the face of Syuri's technique, agility, and aggression. It was a bit of a role reversal compared to how she would normally bully around her opponents. It's actually somewhat rare that someone can get a conventional shine on her. This wasn't quite that, but it was far closer to it than usual, and it was fascinating because of that.

With Maya, things were completely different, and I don't just mean the fact it wasn't an ROH match so there was no Code of Honor (she was quick to shove Maya down and taunt her with her own M/W hand signals instead). This had more of an exhibition or celebratory feel. A playful feel. It reminded me a little of the Willow ROH match where they hit finishers of previous ROH champs. That had thrown me at the time but this didn't. Here, they went counter for counter, tit for tat, cartwheeling through things, rolling around the ring with cradles. There was a showy element to it. I'm not saying that the character of Athena was taking it easy on Maya, but I do think she was perhaps giving her some rope, was letting her shine. You might call it kindness, knowing this was Maya's moment in the sun after all that she'd been through, but knowing Athena, it was probably more like false hope. She was playing with her food, building confidence so that she could snatch it away. After the fact, she might even claim it was magnanimous, but it would have been her lying to herself, the world, the heavens. She held a grudge against Maya for taking her to the limit three times in the last few months, once literally in the Proving Ground. And perhaps even more than that, she now realizes that there is a chance that she is Cronus, not a god but a Titan, with Maya as the Zeus set to someday overtake her.

Of course, Athena is equal parts wrathful and resourceful and she was able to take over on both opponents. With Syuri, it was on the apron, absorbing repeated knee shots to hit a brutal twisting power slam upon it. With Maya, the moment that she Maya stepped just a bit too far, when her confidence was growing just a bit too much and she was maybe about to get one over on Athena, her mentor squashed her like a bug with her Something Evil variation on the floor. No Koji Clutch follow up needed here. It was all about contorting her, crushing her, and opening the door for the damage to follow. 

And the damage she did upon both opponents looked quite similar. With Syuri, it was a bit more focused. With Maya, it was somewhat more meandering, more playing to the crowd, more rubbing it in Maya's face, but it was equally brutal for both. Yet both would come back and get a measure of revenge. Here, however, is where the matches once again deviated. One of the joys of ROH matches and about Athena's run as a whole, is that there's more room to breathe, less need for commercial breaks to help drive the match (Maya came back right when they were returning from break, for instance). Instead of going down into the finishing stretch, the ROH title match was allowed to have an extra level of complexity. Syuri took Athena off the top rope with a hold and started to dismantle her arm. They were already past the conventional heat segment at this point, but it added an extra wrinkle which would make the remainder of the match more interesting. 

Athena would have to both escape submissions and fight back with one arm. Meanwhile, Syuri would shift her focus to bigger bombs in an attempt to put Athena way. As they fought to the finish, they traded those bombs, including Athena pulling out moves she only does rarely, like a Tiger Suplex. Syuri pushed her advantage (both the momentum with which she started the match with and that gained from the damaged arm) and Athena came off as something of a vulnerable champ who could lose at any moment, deepening the drama. Despite that, she was able to hit one last clutch reversal, slipping through the legs for a pumphandle tombstone, setting up the O-Face and her getting her win back and retaining the title. 

With Maya, things were very different. Athena survived Maya's comeback through familiarity, having an answer for everything Maya tried. Yet, Maya kept coming, her refusal to back down shifting Athena into the sort of reactive state she had been in against Syuri. That ended in disaster for Maya, however, as both women found themselves on the floor, and then up on the guardrail, with Athena getting the best of the moment and driving Maya down onto it with a Rock Bottom.

The match opened up emotionally from there. As it looked like Maya wouldn't beat the count (a 10 count here as opposed to the 20 count in ROH), Athena reached out to pull her in. It seemed at first like another magnanimous gesture, Athena giving her protege (though not minion) a chance to win or lose in the center of the ring, to not squander her opportunity on a fluke. She immediately began to berate her over her brother's memory, however.

Why do we watch Athena? Because she's dynamic and complex. Because she is the roiling ocean, an active volcano, because she is a villain that may not be sympathetic, may not be relatable, but that is all the more fascinating because of her strengths and her faults.

At first it seemed like she was offering a hand to Maya to lift her up. Then, as she berated her and Maya exploded upon her, it seemed like she was trying to awaken something within Maya, to try to make her fight all the more, to make her the best she could be. Here's where that familiarity comes into play though. That's not what she was doing at all. She was luring her in. It wasn't that she wanted Maya to be able to win or lose in the ring. It's that she wanted to put her down once and for all, definitively. It's not that she wanted Maya to rise up and fight. It's that she wanted her off her game and frazzled. That's why she was able to catch her in the corner and take her down, setting her up for the O-Face. Maybe if the wind had blown a little different or the sun had shined through the trees Athena may have decided differently and found just a modicum of grace. But it hadn't and she hadn't, and now it was time to end Maya.

The O-Face is one of the most protected moves in wrestling. Barring a fluke roll out of the ring or a foot on the rope, it ends matches. That's important. People love surprise kickouts and artificially propped up exciting finishing stretches, but it's so much better to define something, to make it important, to reinforce its importance, and then, when it really, really matters, when you want to make someone, when you want to highlight her journey and put her over the top, then and only then, to have someone kick out. Only then. Only when it matters the most. You build up capital, build it and build it and build it, and then you pay it off. That's the most powerful tool in pro wrestling.

In some ways, that's a symbol for Athena in general. Some people say she takes up too much of the air in her matches, that she overwhelms and eats up opponents, but she always reacts when things don't go her way. She sells it emotionally, because she expects to win, expects to dominate, and so often, lives up to her own expectations, thus creating that expectation with the fans as well. In that regard, she reminds me of Stan Hansen. By enforcing so strict a baseline, it means any deviation from it carries great rewards for an opponent who can step up and force it. 

Athena hit the O-Face clean. She pinned Maya cockily. Maya kicked out. Athena sold it like the shock, the transgression, the offense, the violation to the order of the universe that it was. She had invoked Maya's brother. She had awoken something inside of her. She had thought it would be something Maya couldn't handle, a means to the end that was the O-Face, but it was instead something that Athena couldn't handle, something stronger than her most dangerous weapon, something powered by love and not hate and therefore, something that Athena could no longer tap into or understand, no matter what she might claim. 

Maya got a fluke small package, but Athena pushed her way out. Then, much like Stan Hansen before her, inevitability, hierarchy, maybe even fate upon her side, Athena reared back to hit a lariat of her own. Maya ducked it, tied Athena up, pressed all of her weight down upon her, and heard the ref count three. 

Post-match, Athena embraced Maya. There's no way to know if that would have been the end of it, if she wouldn't have ambushed her if Mercedes hadn't come down. That's part of what makes Athena so interesting after all, the wild unpredictability. Even if she had spared her, it wouldn't have been heroism but instead another streak of false magnanimity from a fascinating villainess. 

So why do we watch? 

The consistency, the variance, the commitment, the familiarity, the unpredictability, the truth and the contradictions. 

How could we not? Why would we ever look away? 

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Sunday Reading: Dixie's Got the Yeyo

Dixie vs. Tony Lazaro JAPW 9/13/02 

ER: Jersey All Pro Tony Lazaro wrestled less than 25 matches in his career and died tragically young, which might make him the most obscure eventual member of Special K. This was before his brief Special K run, not yet one year into a career that didn't last two. Think of this match as Kikuchi trying to rise up against Kobashi, but if Kikuchi and Kobashi were 135 pounds soaking wet. Knowing how inexperienced Lazaro was, it's another great Dixie performance, highlighting how good he was at missing offense to create openings, and how advanced he was at fueling the innovation of others. His fast missed offense to set up an opponent's sequence - like his fast spinning heel kick - was something La Parka was really good at in the exact same way. I don't think Dixie was inspired by La Parka, he just has many qualities that great wrestlers have. He's able to highlight the strengths of Lazaro in cool ways, working familiar sequences in ways that include something unfamiliar. 

I loved the way they approached their mirror sequence, with them mirroring each other so well that they actually perfectly connect the soles of their feet during the mirror dropkick. I don't think I've ever seen that. Dixie works his brilliant fusion of southern wrestler and innovative joshi worker, throwing sharp punches and multiple kneedrop variations to glue together his attacks. The knee he shoves into the side of a crawling Lazaro's head is even better than his traditional vertically dropped knee. They don't overdo big spots which makes their high end basics stand out, and makes their biggest spots pop. Seeing them do a gorgeously executed Ocean Cyclone Suplex is cool because you get to see what it would look like performed by people smaller than Manami Toyota. 

There's a great moment that really captures the feel of this era of Jersey All Pro, when Lazaro hits Dixie with a stiff mule kick to the face from the apron then hits an Asai moonsault that smashes his shins across the guardrail. He earns his Holy Shit chant for the dangerous landing, while also earning his babyface cheers when he makes it back to the ring fired up from surviving his bad landing. JAPW fliers landing brutally and fighting through pain is one of the things that made the style so cool. It turns traditional wrestling selling on its ear because we witnessed them actually surviving violent crashes, their toughness eschewing the need for theatrical limping. 

Dixie is an innovative bumper without reinventing the bump, great at taking slamming offense on his face. His small frame was perfect for being whipped into the mat on pancakes and 2002 Staten Island playground wrestling full nelson clutch slams alike. He's also great at quickly setting up and executing extremely complicated offense. His match finishing Air Raid Crash delivered over his own knee rules in its full embodiment of the promotion's highly embellished style, but it's the way he gets Lazaro into position for it so quickly that makes it the style's equivalent to an Arn Anderson spinebuster. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SPECIAL K

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Found Footage Friday: LOS INFERNALES~! VALENTE~! GUERRERO DE LA MUERTE~! NIEBLA~! LATIN LOVER I GUESS~!

Rayo De Jalisco Jr./Latin Lover/Valente Fernandez vs. Los Infernales (Satanico, MS-1, Pirata Morgan) Monterrey 8/23/92

MD: We had previously covered the Latin Lover vs Valente Fernandez apuestas match so it's nice to get this as well, which has Fernandez turning on him, including him explaining it after the match. Morgan wears a bandana through this as he'd just lost his hair to Vampiro. Infernales ambush to start, and it's a solid rudo beatdown where they cycle through the tecnicos before slamming Lover, holding him down, and having MS-1 squash him with a top rope splash. Segunda starts with Rayo charging the ring and it settles down to exchanges. He gets all of his stuff in as the Infernales bumble about. They're as good as anyone playing into it. Fernandez looks very good too, sharp offense, going out as a tecnico with a bang. Lover less so, overall. The tercera was short but chaotic with guys going in and out of the ring and the tecnicos sort of trying a hit and run approach. It ultimately backfired as Lover rushed in to save Fernandez from a 3 vs 1 situation and accidentally dropkicked him. Fernandez lost it after that and started in on Lover with a chair before raising his hands with the Infernales and going back out to post Lover some more. He got a ton of heat for it and on commentary after noted how sick he was of Lover constantly being so clumsy. The payoff was fun so now it's nice to have the set up too.

ER: I loved the match long payoff of Valente losing his shit on Latin Lover, because every time Lover was in this match he looked like the worst wrestler in Monterrey. Were Rayo's bunny hop headbutts ridiculous? Yes. But everything Latin Lover did - outside of a cool bad landing dropkick on the floor to MS-1 - looked like it was done by a guy who should not be in a ring in front of paying customers. Watching him hit light clotheslines below the boobs or his weird Roadblock moonsault bumps to the floor was enough for me, but watching Valente doing several flawless classic lucha bumps to the floor made me fully understand his turn, even before the dropkick. And let's hear it for my boy MS-1, the least acclaimed of Los Infernales but a helluva show here, outshining Satanico and Pirata, huge aura, big top rope splash, throwing harder punches than his celebrated brethren. 

Latin Lover/Kato Kung Lee vs. El Sanguinario/El Mercenario Plaza De Toros Monumental mid-1992

MD: It's worth going through all of this just so we know someone's covered it. Rob had pointed out a number of new matches on this channel and I can report back that there's not a lot to see here. Lover still had his mask at this point and he was over with a part of the crowd as the new idol/sensation, and I'd even say his stuff looked a little better here, maybe because Sanguinario was flying into it so well, but this was fairly straightforward. At one point in the segunda when the rudo beatdown abruptly start, he got lawn darted into the seats and that was pretty satisfying and Kato Kung Lee got to do his stuff right at the end to entertaining effect but the VQ was rough for the most part and the opening exchanges were pretty subdued. Unless you really want a glimpse of what early Lover looked like, I'd say this is probably a skip.

ER: If any of you are out there reading this and still wondering what early Latin Lover looked like, picture the worst Lenny Lane match you've ever seen and now picture Lenny with less polish. 

Mr. Niebla vs. Guerrero De La Muerte Arena Coliseo 12/17/96

MD: Just the tercera here. We come in with Guerrero in charge, first with a camel clutch and then tossing Niebla off the top. He has a cool little bit he does where he winds up with his foot for leverage before tossing him too. He then starts slapping the piss out of Niebla, which only enrages Niebla and enables the comeback, which included a great moonsault from the apron to the floor. On the way back in though, Guerrero pulls off Niebla's mask. The ref buys that it was an accident and the match continues (which I've rarely ever seen actually).They rolled into a stretch from there, including a big top rope dive to the floor and then wiping out over the top in a Jerry Estrada bump by Guerrero which was followed up by Niebla having to shift directions to hit his tope. Guerrero caught him on a rana attempt and dropped him with a power bomb for the win though. A good fall. Shame we don't have the whole thing.

ER: Fantastic one fall tercera look at the things that made Guerrero de la Muerte a special worker, one who we've likely highlighted much less than other special workers from this era of special workers. This was Guerrero's fall. Niebla got a couple cool tecnico moments: a big Asai moonsault (the way he slingshots himself to the apron made it look like he was going to go even crazier, like Gran Metalik or Taka) and a tope with hardly any run up, just switched directions when he saw where Guerrero was running. Guerrero was great at setting it up, his backdrop to the floor superb, holding onto the top rope to get full extension and holding it for a full arc. It looked like he was captured in a vert ramp trick on the cover of Thrasher. 

But the fall was all about building to those few big Niebla moments and letting Guerrero run wild with the rest. Even Guerrero gets a big dive, hitting an awesome full arms out plancha. Both were excellent at catching the others' dives. I'm with Matt in that I don't think I've ever seen a mask removal deemed "accidental", and in this case Guerrero was definitely Up To No Good with the mask removal. The way it happened was so sick. He had the mask partially removed and had a handful of the mask's jawline so he could hold Niebla in place while punching him in the face. Niebla began to fall after taking punches and the mask came off in Guerrero's hand. An accident, in that he wasn't attempting to rip his mask off, he was merely using the mask to punch his opponent in the teeth!

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Masami! Jaguar!

Volume 3   

13. Mimi Hagiwara sings 'Broadway Dream'

K: Matt got to this first and made me chuckle that he keeps reviewing the singing segments, not something I ever intended anyone to do! It’s just part of AJW. You have to watch it. If anything my curation has significantly downplayed the proportion of 80s AJW TV that consisted of wrestlers singing. Part of it was to try and sell records (these songs were all released as singles), but I also think they match up well with their in-ring personas and aren’t just random songs.

MD: I don’t know? What do we say about this. It’s weird to see Mimi in red and not white. She’s more expressive selling than singing but she’s clearly good at this? This was disco-tinged in a way I may have expected a year or two earlier. I got nothing. I’m tone deaf. 

14. Devil Masami vs. Jaguar Yokota (WWWA Singles Title) 7/19/82 

K: We don’t have much info on attendances for this era of AJW but I’d make an educated guess that this was the biggest show of the year. It’s Ota Ward and it looked pretty packed. We’re missing a lot of the TVs before this one unfortunately. We do know that Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori successfully defended the tag belts against Leilani Kai & Velvet McIntyre in a show shortly before this. They beat Princess Victoria & Wendi Richter in the match before this one, plus earlier in the show Lioness Asuka beat Masked Yu to win the AJW Title (which had been vacated by Devil Masami earlier). 

Right from the introductions you can hear that there’s sizeable contingent in the crowd who are cheering for Devil Masami. Anyone who tells you fans cheering for heels is something that only started recently needs to brush up :) It’s worth noting not just because it’s unusual, but I also think it informs how the match plays out. If the reason for Devil getting cheered is some fans liked how violent and ‘badass’ she comes across, this got undermined by Jaguar Yokota really pulling out that side of her tonight, which was a good thing.

Devil’s more crazed shenanigans are put on the backburner tonight, it feels like her and Jaguar really want to deliver more of a classic style wrestling match. They distinguish themselves not by Devil cheating as such, but the different way the transitions play out. Firstly, we have them go to the mat, where Jaguar is pretty dominant in locking Devil up in various leg-focused holds (which Devil sells with excellent facial expressions). Devil switches things by powering out of a butterfly suplex position. Later again when she’s on the defensive it’s because Jaguar has her in an unusual submission where she’s pulling both Devil’s shoulders back behind her like she’s about to do a really big sitting chest press but is overdoing it… but Devil has the brute strength to power out and take Jaguar down. On the other hand, whenever Jaguar takes the advantage, it’s by using some combination of speed and technique, for instance when she leaps at Devil off an Irish Whip and rolls her up into a pinning predicament. 

Power vs. technique, but also there’s an added malice to Devil’s offense, for instance in how she slams Jaguar face first into the match, like she’s adding a bit of gratuitous violence/humiliation into it. She’s also the first one to take things to the outside, where she throws Jaguar into the chairs. It’s such a ubiquitous spot I sometimes think you need to think of Joshi match structure as shine - heat - throw into chairs - hope - comeback or something. It works as a signifier that we’ve moved onto a new section of the match.

Jaguar gets back into the ring and has an angry vibe about her. She quite quickly gets the advantage when they start a Greco-Roman style struggle, which you’d normally think would favour Devil, but Jaguar’s able to use her leverage to flip Devil over in a kind of monkey flip move and then goes to work on her. She’s so aggressive and vicious at going after Devil’s leg that Devil actually flees to the outside limping! There’s a big roar from the crowd supporting Jaguar here, it’s as noisy a crowd as we’ve had in a while. She gets a reprisal in and throws Devil into the outside chairs.

The big criticism at this point has to be about Devil mostly dropping selling her leg after the restart, or after a minute or so. I don’t think it’s accurate to say she drops it entirely, she does subtly walk a bit unevenly on it for a little bit and when she has Jaguar up in the military press she does a movement just as she drops her that her leg was about to give out if she held up Jaguar a moment more. I’d put this in the category of it would have elevated the match if Devil sold her leg more, but it’s not egregious enough to actively drag things down. We’re also just hitting a climax here which is exciting enough that I don’t really notice unless I’m really paying attention. 

Also, Jaguar hits and OVER THE TOP ROPE dive onto Devil on the outside. I’m pretty sure she’s only the 2nd woman - after Tomi Aoyama - to ever successfully hit that move. Puts over that you’re watching a special match when something like that gets pulled out.

We’re not getting a winner here. We’ll have to wait another year for that. Double countout it is. Thematically, the way they executed this works. Jaguar has tapped into her most vicious side and - unusually for her - is showing a lot of emotion and expressiveness in dishing out punishing to Devil. She actually looks gleeful at times. It all gets out of control when she’s swinging a chair around at her as Devil gets her cane to try to fight back, but despite that being her element, they come across as evenly matched at this. A flaw is Jaguar’s chair shots are a bit weak, although I may be looking at them with post-ECW eyes, and it is a positive that wrestlers didn’t seem to need to actually scramble their opponent’s brains to get a reaction from a chairshot.

Excellent match and one of the best of the early 80s for AJW.

****1/4

MD: Long title match between the top face and the top heel and a great way to end the disc. What clearly stands out in this relative to Jaguar’s predecessors, and a theme for this disc in general, is just how much she took the fight to Devil. Despite being carried out by her faction, they would be a non-factor here, only intervening when everything broke down at the end and maybe acting as moral support when Devil was hurt the worst. Jaguar had enough of Masami’s crap and she was going to take no more. 

While Devil tried to attack her at the start, she turned it back on her with a cross body block off the second rope and after trading a few holds (including a deep tapitia/cavernaria variation by Devil), Jaguar honed in on the leg. That meant a brutal figure four, with the two selling huge in what seemed to be oppressive heat. It meant wrapping the leg around the rope and kicking at it. It meant her short leg scissors. It meant a toehold with her knee dug into Jaguar’s leg. Jaguar sold it with her usual expressiveness and Jaguar put over the effort like the most important thing in the world.

Which, of course, meant that Devil would drop it completely as she headbutted her way back into a comeback, immediately locking in a tapitia that used the leg like nothing had happened. Bit of a shame, not because you have to sell religiously but because it was both the meat of the match and so well done while it was happening.

That said, the bombs they bridged to next were compelling.They both had a lot of stuff and some good transitions as well. Jaguar flipped through a tilt a whirl backbreaker attempt. Devil reversed a second tombstone. It seemed like maybe, just maybe, Jaguar was going to get her after bridging up out of a pin and finally hitting her double underhook and belly to back suplexes, but Devil survived.

They spilled to the outside to finish the match (having visited it once or twice already) with Jaguar again getting fed up and launching an assault on Devil with a chair. Devil came back with the kendo stick and they jousted for a while before taking out the ref and forcing the match to be thrown out. It was still pretty satisfying even if they clearly left a lot more for the future. We tend to not hold the dropped limbwork against them because they just hadn’t mentally worked their way through that sort of longterm consequence but here it did particularly grate. Still, the good was exceptionally good. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/8 - 6/14

ROH TV 6/11/26

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs The Workhorsemen

Punch in. Knock out.

That's the creed of the Workhorsemen. It's built into their name. Carpenters. Good hands. Guys you want to anchor your card. Solid. Unshakable. They'll give anyone a tough match. Can credibly beat any other team on any night. Do work that anyone would be proud of. 

So that's on one side. On the other? Eddie Kingston and Ortiz. Eddie's here in ROH not to give back, not to teach, not to train, not help even, but to give the young lions of the company someone to push off against, someone to show heart against. 

That's well and good for Billington, for Price and Oliver, for Cole Karter or Griff Garrison. 

Not JD Drake. Not Anthony Henry. They've been punching in and out for years and they've seen one kid after the other get the fame, the fortune, the recognition, the opportunities. Life happens. It's happened to both of them. Maybe if things had gone a little different, one of them would have been the Continental Champ, the ROH champ, would have gotten Ortiz' chance to shine. Eddie fought for what he had. Ortiz made the most out of opportunities. But they would have too. 

Do they whine? No. Do they quit? Never. They keep punching in. They keep knocking out. They keep fighting. Maybe there's a chip on their shoulder, but given how they use it, that's a good thing.

This was just a really good mid card tv tag. The characters and the expertise drove it. That chip on the shoulder? They found the middle ground between that driving everything and classic tag team knowhow. For the latter, Ortiz especially was so good at being in the right place at the right moment for the right effect. I wasn't a huge fan of the Ortiz/Santana combo because it was a little too much of the same, maybe a little cute when it came to some of the tandem offense, but you put him in with contrast, and so much of what was great about that team gets to shine without any distractions.

Then you put him against the Workhorsemen who excel at controlling the ring and creating opportunities both for themselves and their opponents and then making the most of the former and cutting off the latter, and it just works exactly like it's supposed to. Maybe more than anything else, I love how they created time for one another. Henry would hang on against an opponent just long enough for Drake to recover and assert himself. Drake would just do the same, biding time until Henry was in the right spot so he could push his opponent into their corner for a trip. There's an element of trust and understanding that most teams never quite reach, but when you see it in practice, it's a special sort of magic.

And then Eddie was there to add the spice and, despite what the Workhorsemen might want, to be someone for them to push off of. Certainly Drake did, jawing, chopping, slamming into Eddie. Henry did as well, going so far as to throw a bunch of Kawada kicks just to make him angry. Then, when it came time for the comeback, one that was very much earned through missed tags and drawn refs and other Southern tricks, he came in like the folk hero he is, chopping away and giving everyone grief (most of all himself, like always), before a leapfrog from Ortiz set Henry up for the DDT.

Just a really good way to spend twelve minutes. Yeah, there are tag team belts stranded in Mexico right now, but this was pro wrestling for the sake of it, guys fighting for pride, fighting because the bell rings and they're faced off against each other, fighting because they're wrestlers and pro wrestlers wrestle, and we, as pro wrestling fans, watch them wrestle. Hell of an arrangement we have here. 

I don't get a lot of feedback out here. That's part of why I post on Twitter now too. Even then, I don't get a ton. But I did get sent a post a year or two ago on BlueSky where someone said that not everything needed a thinkpiece or a review of 1000+ words, that, in this case, Rhino vs Manders didn't and that it just diluted everything. Now, of course, I was going to write earnestly and honestly about a DEAN match, but I think it's something worth poking at.

Pro wrestling criticism, writing about pro wrestling, is fairly underdeveloped. I don't think what I do is honestly all that great relatively. I do my best but this is a hobby. It's just a sparse ecosystem.  In a world where the bones have been picked for years and years, I don't think anyone would need me. Wrestling isn't like that. Most of the writing has gone to the best, most lauded, most canonical stuff. You can probably read a decent amount about Flair vs Steamboat. You probably can't read a ton about 1981 German footage. You also probably can't read a ton about a mid-card match from 1993. 

You can probably read a lot about Okada vs Tanahashi from January. You probably won't read a lot of people thinking about Workhorsemen vs Eddie Kingston/Ortiz tag from ROH. But there is beauty to be found in this. I don't know how many stars someone might give it. 3 and a half? The show itself has 7 votes and a 5.something on Cagematch. But limiting yourself to canonical five star matches misses so much of what makes pro wrestling amazing. 

I think there's plenty of joy to be found in the crates, in the trenches, in the margins. It's work looking fir the greatness in the smaller moments and even a sort of craftsmanship and serenity in moments that aren't conventionally great. 

These four are so good at what they do and what they do has value and worth. So long as you open your heart to it, it will make you feel something and isn't that what this is all about? These are complex characters who have lived full lives and that can not just distill that not just through promos, but in their ringwork itself. They played with the conventions of the form, remixing and refracting complex emotions through it. There is room for it in this world. The world (of pro wrestling but in general) is better off for it. And to me, that's absolutely worth writing about.

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Found Footage Friday: 1981 HANOVER~! BRET~! BELLOMO~! DIETER~! MOROWSKI~! GORO~! KIMURA~!

10/23/81 Hanover

Bret Hart vs. Paco (Francisco) Ramirez

MD: We only barely hear Bret come out to Some Girls by Racey which is the highlight of his matches in Germany generally. Paco Ramirez was really leaning into the bandelero thing with the hat and the music and the pancho as best as we can see at least.Nice bit to start. Bret pressed Ramirez to the ropes and Paco tripped him. Then he tried it again and Bret sidestepped and whacked him. Paco let the crowd get under his skin pretty well. They did some bits where Bret outwrestled him only for Ramirez to hair pull and then get run over. This was all sound but clearly Ramirez had more connection with the crowd. 

You know who else had more of a connection? The ref. At one point Ramirez refused to break a hold so the ref dropkicked him out of the ring to a huge pop. I'm not sure this helped either Bret or the match though. Bret got a big comeback out of the corner reversing a whip and all of his babyface offense (forearms and dropkicks and a legdrop) looked crisp, crisp enough to score him the win.

ER: I think I like Germany Bret Hart a lot more than Matt. I see this guy a couple years into his career, and am kind of blown away by his execution and poise. His connection to German crowds wasn't there, but who do you expect him to be, Sal Bellomo? He works this match at a very brisk pace and I was impressed by the deep bag he brought. He played wet behind the ears rookie to Ramirez's sneaky vet, but his ring work did not look like a rookie's. He has snap on everything he does, every collision looks honest, every throw or takedown is physically sound. These are the full grown snapmares of a man who understands the physics of a snapmare, understands the physics of an armdrag. When he runs at Ramirez, his approach is believable whether he connects or misses, because there's an honesty to his work. I am a big fan of Established Bret and one of the things I love most about his work is his honesty. 

There is a logic to his progression, he clearly mentally keeps track of what kind of offense he "should be able to do" as a match progresses, and the execution is that of someone in his current match condition. He is never a worker who is going to work the match the exact same in minute 15 as he was in minute 2...but that seems like a much more impressive skill for someone to have this early in their career. He is not fully formed Bret, but he's much closer to that level than we could have reasonably assumed. The one noticeable thing he grew out of as he continued to improve, is he lost that kind of hunched shoulder stillness during what should be the glue moments. I think of Bret as a strong Glue Guy because he is never caught in a state of stasis in between The Action. He's good at occupying space, good at gluing spots together with body language. Here he was still standing there in a wrestler's hunch, waiting for the next thing to happen. I wonder when he grew out of that. Owen never grew out of that. You can watch almost any 1998 Owen match and see him standing dead still in that same hunch, waiting in place for the next thing to happen. 

Sal Bellomo vs. Manuel Lopez

MD: If you asked me fifteen years ago if I'd rather see a comparable Bret or Bellomo match... well, Bellomo was beloved here. Lopez came out to bullfighting music but with less aplomb than Ramirez. This was face vs face and had a lot of fun tit for tat type spots. Lopez would flip Bellomo and play it up, then Bellomo would do it to him. Lopez would escape a hold by lifting Bellomo and carrying him to the top turnbuckle and seating him there, then Bellomo would escape one by positioning Lopez onto the apron. All fun stuff. Handshakes and sportsmanship. In the second round, Bellomo escaped a headscissors by scooting around and kicking at Lopez' belly a bunch which popped the crowd. Then they went into a bodyscissors sequence that ended with them stuck together by their legs.

Lopez had a lot of fun stuff. They did a bow and arrow, a stump puller (which is not something you see often), and he had ways of stepping over and whacking the arm to unlock things. All that and a ripcord spinout backbreaker. Bellomo was happy to take all of it since shortly thereafter he leaped up to the second rope and hit a flying body press off of it to pick up the win. Pretty fun stuff while it lasted though.

ER: Many in our community love to "build books" on guys. Do a dive into someone known or unknown, see if there are any things that were missed, anything we can mention about someone's work that could change an opinion or inspire further digging. There are sexy names to do dives on, and, well, less sexy names. Salvatore Bellomo feels like a guy who is being discussed only by me and Matt, a German sensation who showed next to none of his babyface crowd connections in his WWF undercard work. We had no idea about Bellomo in Germany and even after writing about several of his German appearances, I feel like he is still a guy only being experienced by me and Matt. Are some deep dive names so unsexy that even upon finding revelations about said sexless wrestler, they inspire more of a "we'll take your word for it" approach rather than a "I too will now form opinions on this man on whom I had none"? I have yet to see Salvatore Bellomo Discourse outside of what Matt and I have written, but I suppose I also have not sought it out. We are alone on our Bellomo Islet, down here in our Bellomo Mines.   

All that to say, Bellomo works in Germany like I have never seen him work anywhere else. There was an armdrag spot where he flew up around and over Lopez and it had so much snap that it looked like a Tiger Mask spot, only Bellomo's had more quick burst speed. Who is this guy? The bulk of the match is built around Bellomo holding a near pornographic body vice in a long, extremely entertaining sequence. The holds were strong and believably cinched in, Bellomo refusing to break a snug body vice while the talented Lopez found ways out or attempted to lock in his own. I need to see Bellomo's early 80s striptease routines because the way he keeps his legs locked around Lopez in various positions points to someone who would have incredible pole control. When the round ends there's one of the best ref untanglings I've seen. The bell sounded while their legs were fully tangled, standing on their heads no differently than a spot I'd see live 20 years later between American Dragon and Low Ki. I am going out on a limb assuming that neither were inspired by early 80s Sal Bellomo, but now I know it only would have made their spot better. The ref had to work hard to unlock these holds, both men crying out in theatrical pain while what sounds like Dutch pop music plays buoyantly over the top.  If that's not better, maybe it's better to just leave Matt and I on our islet. 

Axel Dieter/UFO vs. John Quinn/Grand Vladimir

MD: So until last week or so I had no idea that Kaiser was Axel Dieter Jr. That just shows you how tuned out I am I guess. Maybe Eric knew? Anyway, they chant for Axel as he's announced and for UFO after that. Fans love these guys and for good reason. 

This might have been for some sort of title or an end of tour tournament or something since the faces got big wreaths at the end. Shine at the start was a blast. Dieter is so good at presenting himself as a star and taking up space. UFO is beloved but more wins slugfests or out-techniques opponents. Vladimir shines as a stooge (Quinn does more teeter tottering but is probably better on offense). Dieter had all of the headstand toupie takeovers before he finally got beaten into the corner. After quite a bit of doubleteaming but nothing that stood out, he got punched into the corner and UFO came in hot to win the fall. Second fall had heat on UFO leading to a Canadian backbreaker, with the third fall continuing the heat leading escape of more backbreaker attempts to a much bigger hot tag to set up the finish. I'm not sure the heel control was quite as compelling as I'd like for a double heat even with some threats of cards and what not.

ER: I had no idea that Ludwig Kaiser was Axel Dieter Jr. but I also haven't watched WWE in so long that the last time I did that guy was named Marcel Barthel and wasn't 't a big crossover star in a Mexican lucha fed that The Undertaker is booking, so there are probably a ton of things in life that I don't know. Who knows what kind of sons Le Gran Vladimir could have out there. Water softener repairmen, HVAC guys, insurance salesmen. Matt and I are the only ones who speak the name Vladimir, who knows who he has spawned. I love teaming up the two tallest foreigners to fight the two biggest babyfaces, made this seem like a big match from go. Quinn and Vlad are very similar workers (at least they're working a similar style in Germany) and their simple control is easy for crowd favorites Dieter and UFO to build off into bigger things. Dieter works more FIP while UFO is the one coming in and trading blows with the big men.

Neither big man does anything spectacular - that's not really the big heel German style - but they're good at basing for things like Dieter's complicated headscissors, and they can break out some surprisingly vicious stuff, like when Quinn stomped down hard on Dieter's face. Vladimir hits one of the biggest and baddest kneelifts I've seen, after Quinn roughly whips UFO into the buckles, tagging in and moving UFO's whole body several feet with the power of his knee. It didn't look like UFO leaping in response, it looked like a man being launched against his will by a powerful knee force. They are powerful, but we need to believe they can be felled by our heroes, and they're good at getting felled. Vlad is great at felling them. There's an excellent spot where UFO is uppercutting Vlad in the ropes, getting into a rhythm, hitting him again and again, and when Vlad's body is anticipating the next recoil UFO steps aside to break the rhythm and send Vlad faceplanting to the mat. 

Karl Dauberger vs. Kengo Kimura

MD: First round had some good dueling armwork, including Kimura getting a hammerlock on repeatedly. When Dauberger started to take liberties in the ropes, Kimura showed real fire with the ref. He had some nice escapes from holds with various scissors including one on the arm I haven't seen much before. Second round was mainly Dauberger grinding down on him with chinlocks and headlocks until Kimura was able to get some kicks in right at the bell. Kimura came back big in the next round with some huge whips and kicks. Dauberger could sell being whipped into the corner (and bump big and stylized along with it). He took over when the ref finally pulled Kimura back (too fiery for his own good). On offense Dauberger was very meat and potatoes with his clubbering and leaning. Kimura came back one more time but Daubuerger got him to the apron and attacked his leg from the floor until he got DQ'ed. Maybe this is why Kimura ended up in his trademark leg brace. Probably not.

ER: Really good stuff, a great asshole Dauberger performance and some always engaging selling from the underdog Kimura. Dauberger goes after Kimura's leg with nothing too fancy, just being a brute, and I was super impressed with Kimura's selling. It felt like someone selling an actual knee injury and not Wrestling Selling. Even between rounds he was stretching his leg on the ropes, in a way that wasn't fully attached to the match. He wasn't limping his way through sequences, he just looked like a guy convincingly working hurt and it gave him this subtle fire that got people fully behind him the deeper he went. Dauberger leaned his weight on him and smothered him, and whenever they were apart he would start trolling Kimura again. There was a great moment where he kicked Kimura in the face while drawing the ref's attention to his complaint, then casually sidestepped Kimura's dropkick response. This needed more of a Kimura comeback to evolve into something special, but I also liked that Dauberger recognized when he had gone too far and fucked Kimura up a bit more before taking the DQ. No comeuppance, just suffering. 

Moose Morowski vs. Jim Neidhart

MD: This had moments where it looked like it was going to hit a different gear, but never quite made it. When they were slugging away, it was good. When Neidhart was charging at him, it was good. Problem was, he started the match by having Morowski move and knock him out and ended it by having him crash hard into the corner and get pinned. In the middle, he got a bearhug on a few times and knocked him over the top once with a hard shot, but it was more posturing and teasing them really going at it than them really going at it. 

ER: It's true this never grew to the power struggle it could have, for reasons that might be Neidhart's inexperience or maybe even his inability to do more. He doesn't have great strikes for various reasons. Either he's not good at throwing worked strikes, or was told to never put weight behind his strikes, so I don't know if he has it in him to escalate this match the way it could have. This is not me saying Neidhart isn't a tough guy, more that I wish his toughness would come through in some fucking slug out with a hoss like Moose Morowski. It doesn't. Neidhart rarely gets to that level. We have more than enough footage of the guy to determine that he just does not have that level in him. We've heard enough stories about how hard he partied, so you'd think reaching that level in a ring would be second nature, but it may be that he was actually conserving his energy for partying while holding back as much as possible in the ring. I don't think I can find fault with that mentality within pro wrestling, really. An NFL practice squad guy should be an expert at violently crashing into guys nicknamed Moose, so we know it's a conscious decision when he does not do that. The power grappling was what made this worth watching. Morowski holding Neidhart in a painful crossface, forcing Neidhart to break by grabbing handfuls of Morowski's hair into a snapmare, that kind of thing. Do more of that and it's a heavyweight struggle that wouldn't need strikes. But I do love Morowski capitalizing on Neidhart's meathead idiocy, essentially painting a tunnel on a rock face and tricking him to run full speed into it...twice. 

10/20/81 Hanover, Germany

Sal Bellomo vs. Goro (Tsurumi) Tanaka

MD: This threw me at first since Bellomo had Kauroff as a corner man and Tsurumi had Kimura and they got announced in their track suits and everything and that doesn't usually happen. This was going all the way and they really milked it. Some great lockups in the first round leading to them trading headlocks. Second round was about armholds and armdrags but again they were working it and it felt very competitive. 

Goro opened things up in the third with shots and stomps and was able to control the arm accordingly. Bellomo had some great hope in the fourth, including a rolling leg pick and a kip up followed by a dropkick but he ended up right back into holds and was really selling the arm by the end of the round. That continued into the fifth which was all Goro. He'd do waterpumps and even cross arm breakers and while Sal tried to fight back, he couldn't get anything going. 

Sixth round had him scrambling, just trying to survive and avoid Goro getting his arm. Lots of rolling away or spinning out as the fans cheered for him. He somehow managed a drop toe hold and things picked up to rope running. That let him hit a back body drop and finally take control on the leg. Seventh had him press his advantage with a roll up into a leglock but Goro had enough and started chopping away, getting real heat since he didn't go to this until things had turned on him. Bellomo took a real beating through the round with Goro's bs kung fu looking good. Eight had Bellomo start to fire back. He'd get cut off a few times but would power through and the fans loved it. He ended it with holds but unable to put Goro away. The last round was a testament to their wind as they really went at it, but just as Bellomo was going to win with his leaping back body block, the time expired. It was pretty good but maybe not worth the time investment if I'm going to be totally honest. Sal really was super over in Germany though.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Tateno! Jaguar! Mimi! Yukari! Masami! Kai! McIntyre!

Volume 3  

11. A Day In The Life of Noriyo Tateno

K: Something you'll get from AJW is all their wrestlers were trained from scratch by the promotion itself, so watching wrestlers develop from very limited rookies into fully-fledged stars is all part of the show. So sometimes they'd dedicate a bit of TV time to introduce viewers to a newer wrestler and get over their personality with the audience, before they have much wrestling skill to speak of. This one is for Noriyo Tateno. On episodes before this they did segments for Chigusa Nagayo and Yuriko Takagai. Nagayo gets plenty of attention later on and Takagai retires at the end of the year/is historically irrelevant, so I chose to include the Noriyo feature. It all helps to get a broad understanding of the vibe of AJW TV.

MD: This is pretty much what you’d expect. They do it in a clever way to have the segment start towards the end of her day (late training and going to bed) and then end as she’s coming out the curtain for a match the following evening. Tateno is 16 here. I’m kind of curious what she was reading that we only get a glimpse of. It’s also interesting they’d show the training because it mainly consists of rolling and taking back bumps and that’s the sort of thing that feels like it might raise some flags. Yes, they need to know how to fall, but they sure do a lot of that in training… anyway, we’re going to be probably spending quite a bit of time with the Jumping Bomb Angels on future volumes so this felt like time well spent even past seeing the inside of 1982 shops or local strawberry fields.

12. Devil Masami, Leilani Kai & Velvet McIntyre vs. Jaguar Yokota, Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori 5/15/82 

K: K: In this match we have a trio of the WWWA Singles Champion Jaguar Yokota and the WWWA Tag Team Champions Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori. Talk about overpowered. Mimi Hagiwara comes to the ring wearing a crown and a semi-transparent white gown. The way she's presented would feel heelish in almost any other context, but she is unironically pushed as a sweet and pure Disney princess like character. 

There's a lot going on in this 1st first, it almost feels like a full match by itself. The main narrative here is that Devil is just unstoppable. She does have a title shot against Jaguar on the 7/19/82 show coming up, so keep that in mind. We open with Mimi charging at the Devil and unloading a flurry of her signature boxing punches on her. It does seem to work for ten seconds maybe when Devil flees to the outside, but then gets the better of Mimi fighting on the outside.

Devil gets revenge for Mimi's punches by continually working over Mimi's hand all through the fall. She starts when she isn't even in the ring yet. Velvet McIntyre has Mimi caught up in the ropes, and then Devil comes over, grabs Mimi's hand and bites it! She goes after it again once she's the legal woman, and it becomes the focal point so much that McIntyre and Kai also go after it when they're up against Mimi. Mimi is able to put up a much stronger fight against the two foreign wrestlers, for instance she's handling Velvet very capably at one point, but then she runs into Devil, who she just can't handle it seems.

Jaguar and Omori don't do a whole lot in the 1st fall really. They're both hot tags but in a different way. Omori just pops in to do some power moves before she runs out of steam and get beaten up. She has an interesting one that starts like a powerbomb, but then she tosses her opponent to the side instead. Jaguar gets more of a reaction when she's tagged in, but she's overzealous in trying to just launch herself at the heels that she gets trapped in their corner and triple-teamed quite quickly. The babyfaces just aren't working together very effectively, meanwhile the heels put together some joint offense to win the 1st fall.

The 2nd fall is mostly just a compressed version of the 1st. This time Mimi does well beating up Leilani Kai, that is, until Devil Masami intervenes and goes to work on her hand again. The twist here though is this time when Jaguar gets tagged in she gets to shine a lot more and evens things up for the babyfaces.

The 3rd fall is when things develop more, there's just a bit more heat in how everything's worked and the babyfaces have more a determination to win about them. Things spill out to the outside a couple of times and the fighting is fierce. Mimi looks downright mad and violent when she's throwing people around on the outside. There's a better throw into chairs on Jaguar though, because she doesn't exactly take a bump but just runs straight into them. 

We get a bit of a Devil vs. Jaguar teaser here. There's a cool moment where Devil swings Jaguar into the corner, Jaguar goes for her boomerang counter off the turnbuckle, but Devil just ducks under it with great timing so that if she hadn't ducked that split second the move actually would have hit. It looks so much better when I've seen so many other wrestlers try these spots but can't make them look anywhere near as believable. 

There's also a funny moment where Velvet McIntyre has Jaguar held up in the air in a choke. Mimi runs in and pushes her so Jaguar just gets dropped to the mat. I'm not sure if that's what Mimi was going for there, but I guess it stopped the choking at least.

We get a rare-for-AJW DQ finish here. Devil for some reason really totally loses it and decides that breaking Mimi Hagiwara's hand is a more important goal for her today than winning this match. She brings her cane into the ring and just starts smashing her hand up with it. After the DQ the Commissioner and referee try to pull that cane off her but she's goes even more wild, throws the referee into the chairs and actually tries to throw a strike at Commissioner Ueda but is restrained by the seconds at ringside. We have a nutcase on the loose.

One of the best TV trios matches we've seen so far. We're a long way off Devil vs. Jaguar so I'm not sure if it was really all intended to build that match, but unfortunately we're missing 6 or 7 shows in between, so seeing it that way is probably the best we can do from an enjoyment standpoint.

***1/2

MD: Tons of pomp right from the start here. I feel like we haven’t seen a ton of Yokota and Hagiwara together this year. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s Kumi who’s been off on her own? But Mimi’s out looking like a white princess, crown and all. Jaguar has more of the martial arts look in black. Devil’s dressed like an evil musketeer (you’ve seen the look, I’m sure), and Kai has the whole “Queen of Hawaii” deal going. Quite the entrances. 

This was pretty great. Omori played her role of taking some beating and coming in strong with small bursts of strength. Likewise Velvet stood out in a big way when it came to effective Moolah-ism (hairpulls, stepping on the hair, maring someone with the hair) and Kai had that plus strength on top of it. Really though, this was about Mimi, Jaguar, and Devil. 

Mimi took it right to Devil at the start, throwing those boxing blows. That meant when Devil could take over later, she started targeting the hand, biting it, stepping on it, punching it! Who punches someone’s fist? Devil Masami, that’s who. Mimi, of course, sold brilliantly, as she is want to do, both in the ring while it was happening (while constantly registering, fighting, struggling, reaching - what a babyface she’s become) and on the apron when they cycled through.

The heels took the first fall after cutting off some fire with Devil being an absolute monster. She pressed slammed Mimi in front of her corner then hit a spinning one to make her land on her hand. When Omori came in they made her take a Bret bump into the heel corner and then Kai finished her off with a splash. Second fall had more working over Mimi’s hand and Jaguar coming in only to eat a gutbuster from a suplex position from Jaguar (who just had so much stuff in this match, so much of it organic and nasty). Yokota did come back ducking under Kai and Velvet before hitting a missile dropkick and beautiful butterfly suplex with an even more beautiful bridge on Velvet. 

Third fall was chaos leading to one more massive move from Devil, being a press slam into the corner onto Jaguar. Things spilled out and when they got back into the ring Jaguar bridged out of a Kai pin and bounded her way back into it. Just when it seemed like their side might win, Devil came in with the kendo stick, targeting Mimi’s hand specifically. The commissioner threw it out and gave things to the babyfaces but Jaguar was absolutely furious at him and everyone else for what had occurred. Between the hand focus and Mimi’s selling and Jaguar’s violent tendencies and how well everyone else played their role, this worked quite well for me.

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The Many Enemies of Maxwell Jacob Friedman (AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/1 - 6/7)

AEW Dynamite 6/3/26

MJF vs RUSH

MD: Conflict in Literature:

MJF vs Nature (RUSH): This is what MJF was up against: RUSH, a rage-filled, ungovernable beast, a monster, the white bull. He had faced men like Darby Allin and Brody King and Mark Briscoe who walked a certain line, but RUSH was deeply over it. Years ago, MJF would have cowered and run from him. Now, he saw himself as the great hunter, as a matador, and he meant to wield his own esteemed civility as a weapon. He provoked RUSH backstage before the show. When the bell rang, he charged right in. When RUSH won the first exchange, MJF spit in his face. When RUSH caught his foot, he poked him in the eye. RUSH kept coming, yes, but MJF was ready for that. He wanted him angry. He wanted him enraged. He wanted him making mistakes. It was RUSH that pulled off the corner turnbuckle pad, but it was MJF who was able to use the referee as a stalking horse to slam RUSH's head in and open him up. Even after RUSH took over, MJF was still laying snares, catching him in the corner to drive down upon his arm and injure him. Down the stretch, when all looked lost for MJF, when he had just barely survived the Horns dropkick in the corner and when RUSH was about to hit it again on the outside, MJF sidestepped at the last moment, one last triumph of man over nature, allowing him to hit the tombstone, the beginning of the end.

MJF vs Man (Rush): Where MJF may have miscalculated is by overlooking the fact that underneath the bestial exterior was the heart of a man, a man with pride, a man who could make calculated decisions. Andrade had tried to focus Rush before the match, had tried to remind him of who he was and what he was and why he did this. A beast knows fight or flight. A man can draw on something deeper. A man can learn from mistakes, can adapt. Even bloodied and reeling, Rush was able to steal MJF's own trick: when MJF pushed Bryce aside to try to do more damage with that exposed turnbuckle, Rush turned the tide and tossed him in head first. Later on in the match, with his arm so damaged, instead of fighting blindly or fleeing and quitting, Rush used the ringpost to relocate his shoulder and stay in the match. It's what pushed him to hit that straightjacket pile driver on the apron. That wasn't the wild act of a beast. It was the driven, focused precision of man. Even at the very end, he refused to quit, showing his defiance as his body gave way. Yet, despite it all, Rush's humanity had its limits and it was by drawing the beast back out of him that MJF forced those mistakes that allowed him to win the day.

MJF vs Self (MJF): The other factor that allowed Rush to get back into the fight was, of course, MJF himself, his own hubris, his own mistakes as a character, his inability to get out of his own way. That's how he got into this fight in the first place, by getting right into Rush's face. That's how this became a no countouts match, by him pressing the matter further. On some level, yes, it was all part of a ploy to drive Rush to distraction and to make mistakes, but in the heat of the moment, maybe there's a little beast within MJF too. It's one that needs to preen, that needs to lash out at everyone and everything around him, that demands recognition, that cares about legacy because it's the only way to prove everyone wrong about him, most of all himself. It was one thing to make Rush angry. It was another to rub it in with the crowd, to make horns after his eyepoke, to drape his arms over the ropes in satisfaction after laying a shot in, to talk into the camera, to taunt whenever he had a moment. Maybe that's the entire point? Maybe if MJF's not rubbing it in, he's not really alive. Everything is a means to that end, to prove some sort of ridiculous point. Maybe he's just that insecure. Every time he lost that battle with himself, however, it gave Rush a chance to come back, gave him another shot at victory. MJF was able to steady himself in the end, through necessity as much as anything else, and lured RUSH in one last time, but he made the road bumpier than it had to be along the way.

Max vs Society: And yet, even with that, the fans still cheered for him now and again, still chanted MJF when he was being announced. That was after Max went out of his way to have Justin Roberts pause that announcement to insult the crowd twice. It's why he gave Rush so many openings through his character's emotional weaknesses, because he has to constantly hammer it through the crowd's head that they're to boo him, that they are to get out of their own way, not try to be smart or difficult or go into business for themselves. MJF is formidable and dangerous, full of bluster but able to back it up, but it's all on Max to constantly stay on his toes so as not to give the crowd anything tangible to latch on to. Rush, despite being a rudo if not a heel, gave them so much, constantly embracing the moment and letting everyone come along for the ride, appealing not to them but with them, letting them scream and chant along. Yet even then, at a key point in the match, they stopped cheering for him and decided that everything was equally awesome instead. MJF was fighting man, beast, himself, but Max's real enemy is that crowd.  

MJF vs Author (Max): Except for sometimes, it's himself (Max) as well. This could be reality, too, couldn't it? Maybe it's society? But to blame anyone other than Max is to embrace nihilism. Yes, there is structure, but he has agency. Max has the power. He's the wrestler. He's the one who conducts the crowd. So yes, he's on a so often card with exhausting high-spot laden, counter-heavy, 5+ star classics, and he has to stay true to himself and try to get a reaction out of these crowds other than "This is Awesome," something more visceral, something more meaningful, something that will last. Sometimes, he becomes his own worst enemy there, trying to keep up, trying to match other former PPV main events to get in front of cagematch scores and (other) critics, and what we end up with is something overly bloated. It's understandable, human, even if it means he's following the trend instead of creating it. On TV, though, there's less of that perceived need, and that's why he's right up there with Darby with best TV wrestler of the year. I'd say he's probably got him beat, but that's just me. Certainly on this night, Max made sure that MJF shined in all of the right (which for him almost always means "the wrong") ways. He gets it as well as anyone going. He just has to refuse to blink even when others don't get it.

MJF vs Technology (The yellow cord): This is a stretch, and a very literal one at that, but yes, that yellow electrical cord did come into play, and yes, after MJF lured RUSH in again and hit a drop toehold on a chair, he ever so casually kicked it back under the ring. I always warn against checking boxes, but this once I wanted to check a box, sorry. He not only beat technology there, but made sure not to give the fans anything to latch on to in the process. No candy for them. 

Max vs God/Fate: Life happens. It happened after All Out 2022 where Max's return got upended. It happened to Adam Cole, a fluke injury that derailed Max's first title run. At some point in the match, it happened here too and Max came out of this with a hurt knee. This has been a great year for Max, a great title run, and now the start of a second, with what seemed to be really good Briscoe and Andrade matches ahead of him. But he's out there fighting the crowd, fighting the last thirty years of history, fighting every card that he's on, and fighting, yeah, himself. What's fighting god and fate in the face of that? It's just one more fight, and he's got plenty left in him. He's just getting started.

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Found Footage Friday: FUNK~! RHODES~! APACHE~! ANGELICO~! NAVARRO~! PSICOSIS II~! SOLAR~! HYSTERIA~!

Gran Apache vs. Angelico Arena Lopez Mateos 2011

(Facebook Link) 

MD:  This really benefited from Black Terry, Jr. getting us so close to the action. Apache is so great to watch up close. First and foremost, the strikes are so damn good. Every time he rears back for a punch or a slap, it's an event. But I love watching him lace one limb over another and grapevine in to lock in a hold. There's just such confidence and assurance to it all. Meanwhile, it never feels given. It simply feels taken. Angelico, on the other hand, really worked to unlock one hold or another. He'd grind his elbow down or work the arm in order to get the leg and it always felt like he was accomplishing something of meaning. That was made all the more so by Apache selling after each and every hold. Even if he was only in it for a second, you'd see the toll it was taking on him. Eric had written about how hard Scorpio landed on Sabu last week and maybe that was on my mind, but there's a senton of the turnbuckles that Apache hits here that was absolutely thudding. Late in the match, Angelico pushes him off and Apache hits basically the only good roll in wrestling history because it prevents Angelico from being able to capitalize, and then he just clocks him again. Finish had a bit of distraction but they still went the extra mile to have Apache go for one last (distracted) punch only to end up contorted and pinned for his trouble. It's a joy to watch Apache work up close and personal. 

ER: We knew Black Terry's handhelds as the best place possible to see guys like his father, Negro Navarro, Los Traumas, but I don't think I recall seeing a lot of Gran Apache footage. Now we've got two new early 2010s Apache singles matches and I would love it BTJ just kept releasing more. This is a damn showcase for the man, a great look at all the ways he could entertain a crowd in a full singles match. I think we were too harsh on Angelico back in the day. We weren't ready for his Afrikaans llave and were repulsed by his tagger culture appearance. He's a great canvas for Apache to attack, whether it's Apache throwing punch varieties or slapping him on the back of the head (which happens a dozen times) or seeing how Angelico can get untied in honest ways. The camera work is incredible, giving us intimate glimpses at every step of their process. There was this amazing double bridge, where Apache rolled Angelico into a trap arm cradle and bridged up for leverage, only for Angelico to bridge his feet up onto Apache's bridge. We were closer than the referee for it.  

I was exciting to unlock some of the secrets behind Apache's punches or slaps and even with the closest possible view I was unable to. I watched several of his punches several times, watching what both hands were doing, trying to see how he was making it happen...and I couldn't. Apache's close up magic stays undefeated. He knows it too, as every time he throws a loud punch he looks off somewhere in the crowd with a grin, playful in his violence. Apache was in his early 50s here and his quickness and ability to spring to his feet was impressive. Moonsaulting off the top and landing on your feet in a lucha ring in your 50s? That's a crazy man, viewed as closely as possible.  

Hysteria/Psicosis II vs. Solar/Negro Navarro Arena Lopez Mateos 1/19/11

(Facebook Link) 

MD: BT, Jr. had released this previously but I don't think we've ever covered it. Pairings here are Solar and Psicosis and Navarro and Hysteria. Solar and Psicosis keep things flowing, lots of ins and outs, lots of motion. Navarro gets the sort of reaction you'd expect right when he gets in there. All the twists and turns (of his opponents') body that you'd expect too. There were a couple of escapes where I had to rewind to see them again and I'm still not quite sure how he got out of a hold but I believe it because I believe in him. The magic of Negro Navarro. When Solar made it back in, he got too close to the corner and the rudos started acting like rudos, beginning a beatdown. Psicosis and Hysteria worked well together (and had clear camaraderie) but they went too far, going after Solar's mask. That led not just into a comeback (Solar's quebradora and Psicosis bumping huge off the rope for a Navarro punch) but the rudos having their masks undone too. Fun finishing stretch where Hysteria whacked the post by accident, letting a bit of spirited pairing/cycling happening before a double pin and then a clutch Psicosis submission out of a cazadora finished it. Fun match which switched things up given the beatdown and cleaner lines.

ER: I'd never seen this. This is flat out some of Black Terry Jr.'s best work. This was a great match that Terry brought to full life. It is one of the most well-filmed wrestling handhelds I've ever seen. He's the closest person to the match and frames every exchange in full vision. It's a hard worked, impressive match with stiff submissions and long chain sequences to a quicker pace than I'd expect on a Wednesday night winter show. This crowd is hot, and these guys all bust ass. Negro Navarro looked so tough, stoic and strong as he worked through holds and hit harder than the others. When Histeria fakes a late match foul, Navarro can only stand and shrug into the distance, the toughest guy ever to work Teller physical comedy, When the loud, molten crowd is cheering his name, he handles it the same. His composure and focus is there in perfect frame, making Navarro's hidden reaction feel seen. 

Solar and Psicosis II are strong together, every exchange. Psicosis II was a very good worker that would probably be talked about more if he wasn't the second Psicosis. He is great at working with Solar, working up to Solar to his strengths, going up multiple times for Solar's strong delayed overhead backbreaker (one directly into Black Terry's camera like it was planned). Solar's selling during his near unmasking was sympathetic and led to a hot home stretch. Every stretch was hot. The Solar/Psicosis opener was 5 minutes that set a steep pace and they held it. Everyone's work held up to the closeness of Terry's camera. It was incredible how tight all of this looked. Psicosis locks Navarro's into such a wicked, contorted lifted submission and we're three feet away from where Navarro's body gets dumped. I don't often think about how pro wrestling is filmed, but this match was so good, and everything about how the action as filmed was to the match's benefit. It was all the angles I wanted to see of every exchange.  

Dusty Rhodes vs. Terry Funk [Texas Death Match] PWF 5/6/89

MD: Bob Cook of all people coming through and supplying this to us decades later. This has such a great feel and look and mood to it. They came down in street clothes without any music. There's no fanfare, no pomp and circumstance. They're just there to fight. And fight they do. The first half of this is in and out of the ring so we can only catch glimpses of the violence when it veers back into to screen. I love how organic it all feels. Funk brings in a table but it doesn't feel like a "spot." It's just him setting it up however he can to slam Dusty's head into it and then he tosses it out when he's done with it. Entirely different than the sort of things we see today in a way that I'm not even sure that I could explain to someone who's mostly only seen modern wrestling. The plunder is a means and not an end. It's just part of the path of violence that they're walking. It's opportunistic. They get bloody so quickly and the falls come quickly too but maybe you can buy the one for the other. They fight on the apron and Funk gets tied up in a microphone wire and it's all brilliant stuff. Dusty knows how to make the most of it spinning him about and whacking him with the mic. 

The rules here are a thirty count after the pin and then you have to beat a ten count, which does break things up but also leads to what is almost a clever finish. Dusty gets a roll up out of nowhere, which is the last thing you'd expect in a Texas Death Match, because how does that even work? Where's the drama? Funk just got rolled up. Obviously he's going to beat the count. But he goes after the ref and Humperdink comes in. The timekeeper is keeping the count, not the ref, so it keeps going while Humperdink tries to use an illegal object on Dusty. Dusty moves. He gets Funk. It would have been a perfect finish because it would have used that 30 seconds for the backfiring interference and then Funk wouldn't have been able to answer the ten count when he would have otherwise been fine, but they complicate it somehow and start the 30 count again. It's a great finish in theory though. And from what we got to see here, it was pretty wonderful over the top bloody violence.

ER: So this is what Funk was up to the day before Music City Showdown, where he created one of the greatest angles in wrestling history. When I found out this match existed and found out it was Texas Death rules, I knew we were in store for a Terry Funk master class on how to fill time while selling long counts between falls, both when he is the one counted down and when he's the one waiting. The shaky roving camcorder footage is not the best way to catch every detail of this match, but it adds something intangible to a fight between brawling legends. Seen by our eyes for the first time nearly 40 years after it happened, it is incomplete but the fuzziness makes it feel even more like lost lore. When we eventually see Dusty in full unobstructed view, he is already bleeding. I don't think I saw how the blood started, we just get a large bloody Dusty emerging from the people, and then all of the stumbling and swinging and artistry of falling we'd expect from Terry. 

Both men look perfect for Texas Death. Terry is in the red Bunkhouse Buck variant gear while Dusty is in all denims, the wrapped left knee over his jeans one of the subtlest and greatest Texas Death looks possible. Both men strip the clothes away of the other, Terry ripping open Dusty's shirt, Dusty ripping off half of Terry's pants so half the match is worked with the right cheek of his briefs exposed, along more leg than we'd seen of his since 1978. Funk's selling is expectedly excellent. During one of the falls, Funk spends the entire count flopping as if he's failing repeatedly to do a kip up, before pulling himself up from his back rope by rope, until he's pulled himself on top of the ropes, which lets Dusty kneelift him immediately to the floor. When Dusty uppercuts Funk in the balls, Terry crouches down into a beautiful strut away from Dust, before scrambling back at him in the same ball selling crouch just to get punched back down. Funk even goes after a security guard at one point, who has no idea what to do and just laughs nervously while keeping his eyes on Funk. Everyone was keeping their eyes on Funk. How could you not? 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jaguar! Ripper!

Volume 3 

10. Jaguar Yokota vs. Monster Ripper (WWWA Singles Title) 4/7/82

K: I'm a bit lower on early Jaguar Yokota than some other Joshi heads. I definitely don't think she was one of the best wrestlers in the world in 1978-81; historically her matches with Jackie Sato have been talked about almost like Jaguar was elevating Jackie, when in context it was more the other way around. If you wanted me to pinpoint when exactly was Jaguar one of the best wrestlers in the world, this is the match where she's definitely JAGUAR.

The opening minutes of this were very effective. If you hadn't seen anything from these two before, everything you need to know gets established when Ripper tries to jump Jaguar from behind as she's walking back into her corner after Monster ignored her offer of a handshake. But Jaguar has eyes in the back of her head, she dodges, not one very several swings at her head. She's smart. She's fast. She's skilful. She grabs Monster's arm and does that move where you run up the ropes and flip backwards into an armdrag thing, I've seen Mayu Iwatani do it many times but she could never execute it as crisply as Jaguar does here. Monster's raging like an angry neanderthal at this, but Jaguar stares her down looking determined and tough. 

One of those starts to match I can replay in my head. Seeing the training skit on AJW TV the previous week makes this a bit better as you can more easily imagine what Jaguar is thinking as she fights to counter the onslaught Monster’s gonna throw at her. Not long after the start she grabs Monster from behind slightly at the side and executes a takedown, just about, in a way which made her seem more skilled as a wrestler but struggling to overcome the size differential. There’s another moment when she has Monster in a Boston Crab, Monster is powering out of it, and realising she’s not gonna be able to hold it in, Jaguar instead switches out of the crab by doing a lightning quick handstand roll to put her back on her feel with momentum to launch another attack. It all emphasises her strengths and makes her look like she’s just The Best.

I've talked up Jaguar enough so I should also note that this is also Monster Ripper's best performance so far. Might just be the best performance of her career actually. She takes all of Jaguar's highspots very well, she's not just some lumbering big girl in reality even she sticks to portraying on in kayfabe. We get a bit of limb-selling from Monster as Jaguar is focused on her knee. This wouldn't be a big stand out in most promotions but in the AJW context where it's not part of the 'going through the motions' formula it feels noteworthy, especially when it results in a big turning point (the backbreaker hurting Monster's knee), and arguably the finish as well. She takes things up a gear effectively when she smashes Jaguar's head into the ring post on the outside, and works on the cut when they get back in the ring. 

The other bit of psychology is Monster going for risky moves after Jaguar hitting on and it backfiring on her. Jaguar's flying hip attack doesn't work, for example, because Monster is so big she just bounces off her. But then Monster tries her own but Jaguar is too fast, ducks, so Monster crashes and burns. Monster also goes for a big top-rope splash after she got hit with a tope just earlier (Jaguar was successful this time), but we get another crash and burn that Jaguar pounces on for the finishing stretch. When she gets the win she gives out such "Yeah that's why I'm the champ" aura that I don't think we'd seen from her yet. As if she's saying, come on, despite everything Monster put me through, you didn't think I wasn't gonna find a way to beat her, did you? 

I believe in my champ.

****1/4

MD: This was absolutely a big match with a big match feel, and it was very different than, let’s say Jackie vs Ripper. Yokota was a different wrestler with different skills. She had to use her quickness and she was going to be more prone to be tossed around. That said, there was a clear sense that she was not going to be able to defeat Ripper with speed or even speed and technique alone. She would have to find something else within her.

Throughout the match, from the moment Ripper first caught her after some initial dodging, it was clear what this match would be. Ripper would lean on her, would dominate. Jaguar would escape, would get in a shot or two, but be unable to really do any damage. She’d keep Ripper on her toes for a minute but there’d be a cut off. 

Yes, that was the size, but it was also that Ripper just had so much stuff. She had wildly varied offense here and it all looked great. She’d press slam Jaguar onto the top rope. She’d pull her back into a quasi surfboard/tapitia. She’d hit a neckbreaker drop off the ropes to cut her off. She had a hundred ways to damage Jaguar and to keep her reeling. When Jaguar was able to toss her into chairs or hit a ‘rana out of nowhere, or even get a monkey flip (all of which Ripper took really well), Ripper had an answer. 
At one point, that answer was to toss Jaguar around on the outside, opening her up. That gave us some of the first real woundwork we saw and the commentary found it shocking and horrific. With the VQ, we don’t get a great sense of the visual power of it, but everyone knew it was what was happening and it did feel striking. But maybe Ripper got too laser focused on it, because it allowed Jaguar to start in on the leg, with a figure four and wrapping it into the ropes to attack. 

Perhaps that made Ripper desperate and take chances and those chances, having failed, opened her up for a straight up missile dropkick, not the sort of front one we so often see. With Ripper staggered, Jaguar, who had tried (and failed) to hit a double underhook suplex earlier in the match, got Ripper up for the airplane spin and then hit her with a bridging belly to back to win it. It felt like she had climbed a mountain and truly accomplished something. And she did it not just through bounding past an opponent or getting a fluke roll up, but by projecting herself as an ace in the end.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/25 - 5/31

AEW Collision 5/30/26

Konosuke Takeshita vs Daniel Garcia

Konosuke Takeshita is a very special wrestler.

While size is relative when comparing modern wrestling to the wrestling of old, Takeshita clearly jumps off the screen. Whether due to sheer height or the combination of size and his theatrical presence, he towers over opponents in a way that most current wrestlers do not. When it comes to his athleticism, he reminds me of Barry Windham at his prime. There's an electricity to how he moves, to the intensity he brings to the table. Given his size and his proclivity (academic and practical) for the German Suplex, you might compare him to Jumbo Tsuruta but his seething stares and alacrity of motion reminds me more of Riki Choshu. 

He's a star. He looks like one. He moves like one. Most often, he carries himself like one. Yet, he is a star specifically made for AEW. He balances the brooding seriousness with a super indie excessiveness in his match layouts (for good and ill) and under the surface of it all is that DDT-crafted smile.  In a perfect world, he would be in that Conglomeration opening credits tron instead of Ishii. 

But this is not a perfect world. It's one where the character of Konosuke Takeshita felt spurned by New Japan, spurned by the Blackpool Combat Club and the Elite, where he allowed Don Callis to whisper dark thoughts in his ears on what he needed to prove, on how he needed to prove it, where he went from a young man who found his way to America and fell in love with Cinnabon to the Alpha of the Don Callis Family. What he found, time after time, was that no matter how much he proved himself to the world, there was always something else. He always came up unsatisfied. 

He rose all the way to IWGP Champion, but he was overshadowed by Okada when he walked in to the Tokyo Dome to defend his title. Even that might have been fine; Okada was a legend after all, but despite being stablemates, Okada rubbed salt into the wound again and again and again. Takeshita could find no peace. Then, finally, after defeating Okada for the International Title, his found family turned on him, his brother-in-arms Kyle Fletcher being the one to turn the knife. 

So he stands on his own, reconnected with the fans, holding the International Title once more, but in other, more important ways, alone in the world again.

Daniel Garcia is a very special wrestler. 

All of those things Takeshita has? Garcia's got none of them. He fails the airport test. His music hits and the fans don't quite pop, not really. He's stumbled from one identity to another (in character and out), picked up a sports entertainment dance, lost it. Tried to pop people with triple superplexes no matter how far away that his from his own personal true north. 

But.

Unlike almost everyone else in pro wrestling today, he's move over by the end of a match than he was at the beginning. 

We're trapped in a world where people are arguing that WWE matches should be shorter and entrances should be longer. That sort of world would drive Daniel Garcia to extinction. But he defies it. He gets people to care about what happens in the ring at every moment, not just finishes and looking to the back for run-ins. He gets them engaged in a way that has nothing to do with "This is Awesome" chants or even "bald" chants. 

Why? How? First, he's genuine. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He's relatable. He's not a big superhero. That's his strength. He's a guy who put in the work, who loves pro wrestling, who cares, who picked himself up from a car crash and dragged himself every step up the way to being on TV. You see it in his reactions. You see it in his face. What you see is what you get and in a world built upon fabrication, that stands out far more than any Phoenix Splash or Fosberry Flop ever could. Far more than any triple superplex might. 

Second, he's pays attention to details. He's going to stay on a body part, and when he falls off of it, it'll be due to a character reasons not just to enact some cooler spot. He's going to set something up to pay it off later. He's not going to meander on a side trip. He's not going to do something for the sake of it. He's not going to fall into excess (except for those self-conscious triple superplexes). The thing is, he has to pay attention to details. Other wrestlers can lean on athleticism and pop the crowd again and again and play to the 5* Observer checklist. Garcia can't, not better than them. So he has to build something that stands on his own instead. He builds matches that are timeless, that work in the moment and move the crowd in the right way, that will still work in thirty years even while those other ones fall to the wayside as athleticism continues to advance.

Putting Garcia and Takeshita together led to one of those matches that will stand the test of time.

Takeshita does best against contrast. You give him someone else who is explosive, who will push him to the physical limit, and it often all becomes noise. Garcia was going to push him to emotional limits, to push his body in far more single-minded, driven ways. 

Early on, Garcia's reactiveness gave Takeshita so much to work with. They chain-wrestled to start. Garcia fell prey to Takeshita's superior reach but pulled hair to get out of a headlock and made sure to flex when he turned it into a headscissors. But they both had a chip on their shoulders, and as Takeshita escaped, he stared Garcia down and smacked him on the chest, sending a message. Garcia returned the message, piefacing and paintbrushing Takeshita in the corner before smacking his chest. Then, when Takeshita tried to take off Garcia's head in the opposite corner for his affront, Garcia ducked out of the way. Takeshita held the pose, forearm against turnbuckle, for just long enough for it to sink in with the crowd, a great visual. And then, of course, Garcia ran right into a big boot, because in this match, he was a heel and when it comes time for it, he was the sort that stooges to make the star bigger.

Takeshita would go for the running boot again but this time Garcia scurried to the floor for a time-out. You could see the panic and hesitation on his face as he did so. He laid himself bare for the world, vulnerable, human. Takeshita gave chase and Garcia went all the way from one side of the ring to the other. When Takeshita made it out to the apron, stomping away, Garcia took the blows (which made this feel less like a planned spot and instead like something more organic, something so important, and something he's so good at), and used the ringskirt to trap Takeshita's leg. 

Garcia attacking the leg and most especially using it to cut Takeshita off would drive the rest of the match. Of course, Garcia did it as meanly as possible, a bulldog, a shark smelling blood. He placed it on a chair on the outside and just stood on it. He refused to reenter the ring until he twisted the ankle one last time. He countered Takeshita's cradle tombstone attempt by turning it into an ankle lock. Likewise with the Blue Thunder into an inexplicable but amazing STF. He caught the running knee and took advantage when Takeshita stumbled on another attempt. Even when he seemingly lost focus, like when he started to pop off push-ups right over Takeshita's knee, he pivoted quickly and turned the motion into a kneedrop to punctuate the final push-up (even as Mox left commentary to yell at him). Focused detail-work. Once upon a time, maybe, you could give the crowd some more rope to work with. With someone other than Garcia, maybe you can do that and even if they don't get entirely where you need them to be, they'll still get somewhere nice and happy. Garcia doesn't leave things to chance. He ties it all up in a bow and presents it to the world, to history itself, like a present. He did that here and Takeshita was happy to go along for the ride, selling, wincing, limping, struggling the whole way.

Which brings us to the real moment of comeback, the elephant in the room, that pile driver.

Oh there had been a hope spot or two first. Takeshita created some distance with strikes but as he turned to hit the ropes, Garcia took out the leg. Then, of course, was the Blue Thunder attempt, where no one expected Garcia to turn things over with a headlock. Garcia had been using the legwork to control the match as the great equalizer, but it was also a key to unlock a door, and he meant to go through it with his pile driver. Takeshita had jammed it once, but he couldn't jam it on the attempt that followed so quickly after. Garcia hit it clean.

And then time stopped. Takeshita slowly, painstakingly, drew his head back, locked eyes with Garcia, rose, struck him down. 

And that's the cardinal sin, right? To "no sell" a pile driver, one of the most sacred and profane of all moves. It's one thing if you're Hawk (maybe not a good thing) and it's one thing if you're Clon and use technique to dull the impact.

Takeshita is neither, but he is, maybe, just maybe, the one guy on the roster who, now and again, should get away with something like this. He's so tied to the notion of fighting spirit, of carrying all of that brooding, seething power within him. He has the size, the presence. He's larger than life. Now and again, so long as everyone else isn't doing it, so long as no one else is doing it, he should get to assert himself and take up all the air in the room.

Rules are structural. They create a foundation where someone like Daniel Garcia can succeed, where everyone does better and everything matters more, where the spectacular can be grounded and have meaning. But they also give people something to push off of now and again, when it makes sense, when it will have an impact, when it turns a wrestler into a star. 

Konosuke Takeshita is meant to be a star and Daniel Garcia is so good at what he does that he can help make someone a star. 

Just as important, the detail work was there. Garcia had targeted the leg the whole match, not the head, not the neck. Those were healthy, strong, vibrant. Garcia had unlocked the door but he hadn't done the legwork (figurative since he'd ONLY done leg work) to drag Takeshita through it. In a different match where there had been bomb after bomb, that might have played differently. I saw people complain about Takeshita's selling as he looked up and pulled himself together, but given the context of the match, it more or less worked for me. When you're breaking all the rules, you're treading new ground. It was a callback of sorts to Takeshita escaping the headscissors early in the match. It cost him something but was worth so much more. 

It didn't feel like that perfidious tendency that is "delayed selling" to me so much as an act of defiance, of assertion, of staking a claim to something greater in this world. 

Just this once, it worked for me. Maybe next time it will to so long as it's built well enough and sits well enough within a match. Like anything else in wrestling, it is entirely situational.

Things moved into a finishing stretch from there. Garcia escaped a Blue Thunder. He positioned Takeshita for that Superplex, but Takeshita countered, only for Garcia to turn his top rope lariat into an armdrag and then, ultimately the Dragon Tamer. It was a great spot because it didn't feel rote. It wasn't a signature spot. It was the character of Garcia adapting in the moment. And then, after landing, he let everything sink in for a moment, letting the crowd take a breath after what happened and before what was about to happen: The Dragon Tamer. 

It would ultimately fail (Garcia's wrench back is the ultimate gambit; it either works immediately or costs him the hold) and Garcia's second attempt to hit a tricked out takeover on Takeshita would fail as well. Konosuke, channeling his preternatural strength, held Garcia there clung to him as time stood still. He slapped his own leg to give it life once more, and managed to suplex Garcia over. The beginning of the end.

Wrestlers are not one size fit all. There's not only one way to be talented, to channel that talent, to connect with crowds, to create matches and moments that resonate with people. Konosuke Takeshita and Daniel Garcia bring very different attributes and skillsets to the table. When you put them together, however, you can create a unique sort of magic built out of contrast and driven by details, one that highlights everything that makes Takeshita special by being underpinned by everything that's special about Garcia.

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