AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 11/29-12/5

AEW Dark 11/30 (Taped 10/24)

Infinito vs. Ray Jaz

PAS: I am not sure the point of this Danielson gimmick.  He gets a chance to work some fast exchanges with Jaz - who looked good - and I really liked Jaz's bumps on the monkey flips. The shtick of the match was Infinito winning with the airplane spin, but it wasn't a great looking airplane spin. For an airplane spin to really work they need to be fast, and I thought the Infinito one was pretty slow. Long slow airplane spin isn't going to do much. It's fun that Danielson gets to experiment, but this was a miss for me.

AEW Dynamite 12/1

Bryan Danielson vs. Alan Angels

ER: I like Heel And Loving It Danielson, laughing that he's getting booed against Alan Angels just for showing up, not working disrespectfully but cutting much more to the point. Angels is fired up in front of his home crowd and Danielson works the vibes of a guy who is underestimating his opponent, who isn't actually underestimating his opponent. His smile is infectious as he hits chops and running dropkicks and the crowd boos, and I liked how he responded to a nice Angels backslide with a sick butterfly suplex into an armbar that I thought was going to polish off Angels right there. Angels got to have his fun hometown comeback, hitting a dive and a Spanish Fly, but misses a moonsault. Once that moonsault missed you could tell Bryan was going to shut this thing down, and stomping the guys' face a bunch before just locking in a kneebar is a cool bad guy way to finish a match. 

MD: This never quite boiled over like I thought it might. We've seen Angels really go and I thought this might be an opportunity for Danielson to turn it up a notch. What we got was fine though. Dragon's most interesting right now with his little mannerisms, laughing off the crowd chanting for Angels, pointing to his ear to draw the boos to a couple of different sides of the ring, indicating his knee after grinding it into Angels' face. Angels sold big for Danielson, leaping into the corner after getting chopped. The transitions and cutoffs were ok: Angels using a backslide to get some kicks in, Danielson cutting Angels' strike attempts off by whipping him around to plant him with the double underhook into the cross arm-breaker, the knee counter to a suplex attempt which is 100% the novel zeitgeist AEW spot of 2021. None of it really told a broader story though. And with that broader story absence, I sort of wanted them to just go harder. I don't always want that, but I wanted it here. Good reactions all around though, especially that smile on Angels' face as the crowd greeted him to start the match. He'll have that with him the rest of his life.

CM Punk vs. Lee Moriarty

ER: Well this stunk. I have no idea how Lee Moriarty became a guy people want to see, because I don't see it. I thought Moriarty looked awful here. None of his offense looks good, he sells every move the same  way but doesn't sell actual parts of his body that get worked over, sets up spots incredibly lazy, and has no punch whatsoever behind any of his dreadful chain offense. How is this guy getting 12 TV minutes against CM Punk? The match goes from bad to worse when Moriarty breaks out one of the dumbest wrestling reversals (taking a top rope huricanrana fully and then just rolling into a bad sunset flip) and then straight into a brutally bad Malenko/Guerrero sequence. This was some not ready for primetime shit, and it made Punk look weaker being associated with it. MJF on commentary was even laughing about how Punk couldn't beat this guy, and when the man is right, he's right. 

PAS: This was just an awful matchup for Punk. I am not a Moriarty guy, but his best stuff has been doing that kind of slick reversal match with guys like Alex Shelley and Daniel Makabe, and that is something that Punk has never really been good at and definitely isn't his strength now. Moriarty really hasn't been on TV, and took way too much of this match for the crowd who didn't know or care about him. It made Punk look bad and didn't do much to make Moriarty look good, especially with MJF clowning him on commentary. That rana into the Malenko/Guerrero stuff looked awful, and the final reversal run wasn't much better. The mic work between Punk and MJF basically worked last week, and it really didn't work this week. None of the jokes landed and it felt very WWE Rawish. The first real complete miss of the Punk era and cutting the incredible Kingston feud short to run this seems like a bigger error each week. 

MD: I had a hard time even paying attention to this one because of MJF on commentary. I'm under the belief that there's payoff to all of this, but it's not to be found in this program. Punk beating MJF doesn't change the fact that he's been presented as struggling with guys like QT and Moriarty, to a level that the jeering heel has more than a point. In that case, it makes MJF look worse for not being able to overcome the guy struggling against QT after his faction has been sent away. If MJF beats Punk, he's beaten a Punk that's obviously diminished. There can be a payoff which is Punk finding his fire or going heel or whatever, but I don't think it can happen within this program. Even done open-eyed, it feels like a missed opportunity for the guy who came back with the most buzz in years. It makes people like Darby and Kingston look worse in defeat, since it was this obviously lesser Punk that still managed to defeat them. As for the match, I'm not arguing with Eric or Phil. A lot of this comes down to presentation. They made the point that Punk was working a heavier schedule than MJF but just like they didn't press in hard enough on QT's low blow, I don't think they were able to hone in on Moriarty's specific skills that'd give him an advantage and make him hard to deal with. They called him young and talented but it was hard to talk over MJF's absolutist bluster. I still like Punk using the bodyslams in various ways. The best of the dancey counter stuff was the Pepsi twist. But they're not putting the exacting care they need to in this presentation. This needed to be much clearer and more focused both in-ring and on commentary.

49. Darby Allin/Sting vs. Gunn Club

ER: I really liked the Darby/Billy Gunn match, and the Darby/Billy moments were my favorite parts of this tag. Gunn really plants Darby with a full nelson slam, like he was trying to put him through the ring. We miss some cool things during the commercial break, which is a shame. The picture in picture caught a lot of the Gunn Club cutting Darby off from Sting, but cut to an actual commercial when Gunn was about to hit a big slam, then came back and Darby had a cut on his head. Darby is always cool with blood (I guess that goes for every wrestler though so), and he hits two classic unhinged Darby dives, a great tope into the guardrail on Austin, and a tope con giro that bounces him off Billy Gunn's head. Sting was fun on his hot tag and the Gunn Club is a strong act, but I just love that weirdo Billy/Darby chemistry. 

MD: A lot to like here. They work the first couple of minutes almost like a mixed-tag with Colten feeding for Darby's speed. The transition when Billy tags in works great. Someday I'll revisit his "The One" run because I look at things differently now, but I didn't have a lot of time for it back when it happened. Even then, I loved the One and Only cobra clutch slam and him catching Darby into it was so good. Darby's hope spot where he landed on his feet after the fall away slam right into the crucifix and the subsequent cut off with Billy's slam was all more than solid. I saw a feed with no PiP which helped. Austin would have been preferable to Colten for that slowed down commercial heat since he's just more naturally irritating, whereas his brother needs to work for it. Darby is the world's most sympathetic Sabu. The second we see the top of his head bleeding, he immediately hits a jawbreaker with it. And those pinball dives. Putting over Sting in Atlanta is as good a way to end an undercard streak as anything.

PAS: I thought this was really great, and it is amazing how effective Sting is at this point of his career. He shows up every couple of months or so, and has these great Southern tags. He is a really good in the corner worker, and is a tremendous hot tag. I loved Darby using those insane topes as cut offs, giving Sting the chance to clean house. The flip stunner into the Scorpion drop was awesome, and the Gunn Club were great stooges, even Austin's big punch ruled. What a great bit of business. There are so many match ups I am excited to see the Darby/Sting tag team work, how great would a Darby/Sting vs. Hook/Dante Martin tag be?

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