AEW Five Fingers of Death 3/4 - 3/10

AEW Collision 3/9/24

Bryan Danielson vs Shane Taylor

MD: There were three or four cascading stories to this one. First and foremost, Shane Taylor is a big, dangerous guy. I've been watching some 1987 baby Hashimoto matches as of late. He's usually paired up with young lions like Chono and Nogami and Anjo, and these aren't at all slouches, even at the start of their careers, but my big takeaway is that it's just not fair. Hashimoto is too big and too quick and too skilled and agile enough to make Maeda's spin wheel kick look like nothing compared to his own. Taylor isn't quite that, but he still brings a ton to the table, that combination of size and power and striking and precision blocking. Danielson sees the leg here as a wedge, as a way in, as a bridge to other offense, as a great equalizer, and he gets there eventually, first to open up the match and then later on to set up the finishing stretch, but Taylor sure didn't make it easy for him. He blocked early, counter-punched, and even once Danielson created that wedge, was just able to bully him towards the corner to take over. 

Then there was the morality at play and the underlying animus empowering Taylor. Danielson came into AEW as a pretty clear babyface, but during his second real feud in the company, with Adam Page for the title (preceded, of course, by the Kingston match in the tournament to give him the shot), he took a hard left turn, running through Dark Order members. In between the loss to Page and the Revolution match with Moxley that would herald the creation of the BCC, Danielson, mean, cruel, brutal, kicked Lee Moriarty's face in. Moriarty never quite made it into the BCC. He ended up under Taylor's wing instead. This may be a more serene, Bryan Danielson, one on the other side of his match with Kingston, at peace with himself and the world around him, but that doesn't erase his transgressions of the last two years. It meant that Taylor had something to fight for, something to prove, something to avenge, and even things that should have worked, like the focus on the leg, only worked so much.

Therefore, Danielson had to find another wedge, be it kicking high or using Taylor's just rage against him. At key moments he was able to dodge, to duck, to avoid, and therefore to open Taylor up again. The punches that Taylor was hitting early became far more challenging down the stretch. Kicks from Danielson that might have been blocked early, hit true once damage was done. He still had Taylor's power to contend with. While he wrapped the leg around the post, he never really locked on any meaningful hold; that wasn't the intent of the targeting. Instead, he chipped away at the armor here and there, provided himself the means to strike at the heart within. It took effort, persistence, skill, but he was able to duck and dodge and roll and create distance just enough to sail across the ring with a knee that would put him down for three seconds. Ospreay was coming out after the match. While Danielson's reputation speaks for itself, their most recent pay-per-view efforts had very different results. Danielson was coming off from a loss and needed a meaningful win. Taylor's own record isn't stellar, but between his size, his presence, his strikes, his righteous fury, Danielson's win mattered enough to paper over the loss to Kingston.