AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 12/27-1/2

AEW Dynamite 12/29

Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz vs. Daniel Garcia/Jeff Parker/Matt Lee - GREAT

ER: I love what these teams do together, and this was another fun TV gem from them. This was great because we turned the format around a bit and had 2.0 dominating a lot of the match, cutting the ring off far more effectively than I've seen FTR do in an AEW ring so far. Kingston is relegated to the apron pretty early, with him brawling briefly with 2.0 (including him fish-hooking Parker). He's great on the apron, and 2.0 get a real showcase against the Inner Circle. Parker especially looked great, like a peak WWE TV match Christian. He's one of the only punchers in AEW, and he has a variety of good ones here, while also bumping explosively for all of Inner Circle's bursts of offense. Garcia gets involved in ways that are more than cheapshots, carrying himself like an MMA bully and vulturing in on Ortiz. 2.0 were given a bit of bad luck when AEW chose to take their longest commercial break of the night during their big beatdown control segment, relegating their most vicious stuff to the tiny picture in picture screen. I would have loved to see full screen shots of Parker's great elbowdrop and low snap suplex, or Lee's hard backbreaker and his elbow smash that knocked Ortiz back into the corner. Kingston's hot tag was King at his fired up best, smashing a avalanche as hard as John Tenta, throwing corner chops to Garcia as blistering as any Kobashi ever threw, throwing a couple crushing suplexes. The finish plays better as angle than Great Match finish, with Matt Lee getting a surprise schoolboy. It could have built to something more dynamic, but Lee plays such a punchable shitheel that I want to see yet another rematch just to see him get smashed, so the finish must be good. 

MD: Kingston started this match with the strap down, literally and figuratively. The match started with him jamming everything Matt Lee tried and dropping him at a nasty angle on a vertical suplex and he really didn't let up for the rest of the match, even though he spent most of it stuck on the apron as the heels beat on Ortiz. He wanted Garcia and they delayed it, but it didn't really feel like MJF's chickenshit performance from the week before. It was more about goading Kingston while Garcia still imposed himself in the match. I have less time for Santana and Ortiz' tandem stuff than most people, but it works best during a shine. 2.0, on the other hand, I really like. They come off like the world's best Disco Inferno: they understand the style's incredibly complex spots, they can take them beautifully, they can't necessarily hit them. The combo of that makes them stand out because they're relegated to older style offense that doesn't take as much suspension of disbelief but looks entirely credible while they still never seem out of place in a modern match. Garcia is always on to the point where his chinlock looks better than a lot of people's best stuff. Point being, the FIP on Ortiz was very good. I didn't think the set up for the hot tag was that interesting but that could have been the curse of having 3 multi-man tags on the show. Kingston running through everyone was great though. Santana stopping the whole world for some long seconds at the end while he waited for Ortiz to get in position for their tandem spot was rough though.

PAS: I really enjoyed this. Kingston is a super expressive performer, and he has that Negro Casas thing where you want to see him on the apron more than the guys in the ring. I am starting to get into the 2.0 and Garcia team, they are just such swarming shitheels, utterly disinterested in doing cool shit, just pure heels. Eddie on the hot tag was awesome, and I like 2.0 continuously stealing pins. I was really bummed we didn't get more Eddie vs. Punk, but this feud has been a nice holding pattern for him, the blowoff street fight should be great, and I do think King can do something with Jericho if that is the next direction for him. 


AEW Rampage 12/31 (Taped 12/29)

Darby Allin vs. Anthony Bowens

ER: 10 minutes of non-stop fun and great Darby exchanges, perfect way to lead off an episode of TV. Bowens is like a modern Xavier, exact same kind of athleticism and snap on nearly everything he does. He's solidly built and throws his body into offense and bumps, so he's like a spark plug version of Darby working the high wired version of Darby. This is another great Darby TV performance, working multiple people into the match without missing a beat, and finding new ways to crash and burn in the most inventive ways. He has found so many all time great ways to get run into a ringpost, but Bowens running him length of the apron and Darby triple salchowing off the post might take the cake. There's a bunch of cool stuff obviously, like Darby's nutbar tope that that sends Darby at Bowens and Caster sideways, or how he is somehow able to make the Code Red still feel like a fresh surprising spot, or the way he took that big Bowens DDT. The Sting involvement continues to wildly succeed as he launches Max Caster into the guardrail, and the Coffin Drop is my favorite finish in wrestling. 

MD: I liked the pacing of this a lot: early feeling out with Darby getting advantage, the really nice transition spot where Darby gave Caster the middle finger instead of playing into his antics but still got nailed by Bowens after a few extra wrinkles, hope spots that were primarily roll ups, and then the build to the stretch with dives, Sting involvement, and everything being earned. Bowens has solid timing, that one strike exchange that looks great and that he can work into different points of his matches, and a nice trash talking presence. I think he'll ultimately shine as a sympathetic babyface but we're a ways away from that. This is probably the best he's looked over the last many months though, and even though he's frequently looked good, you still have to give Darby his share of credit for that. I usually save commentary discussion to message board recaps of Dark and Elevation, but since most people missed it, during the PIP break Starks was a lot of fun ribbing Tony about Tennis elbow and never playing tennis. Maybe my favorite Starks commentary moment so far.

PAS: This was really fun. I want to third the love for Bowens in this match. Darby can basically have a great match with anyone at this point, but Bowens has really good looking snap on all of his offense and I loved his Tenryu-ish forearm chop strike. I am even into his DDT, which could be like Nova in the wrong hands. I'm not sure if Darby should be taking bumps like that ringpost bump on a 10 minute TV match opener, but I do love how nasty it was.