AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/8 - 4/14

AEW Dynamite 4/10/24

Samoa Joe vs Dustin Rhodes

MD: To me, this was a beautiful match. I love the build, the execution, the set up, the payoff, the restraint, the focus. I love that the first half of the match was basically nothing but punches, nothing but Dustin coming in hot, Joe raking the eyes to cut him off, tossing him into the post to open him up and cement his control, and then just Joe leaning and leaning on him, working the wound, pressing down upon him in the corner, just causing harm. Dustin would try to fire back and would get cut off. All that meant, when they shifted gears into the second half, Dustin hitting his power slam felt so meaningful. It meant that the code red was a way to cement Dustin coming back into the match, not just another move as part of a series of them. The match allowed it to be an escalation and not just noise. And then, of course, the ultimate escalation was the belt, and the rest of the match built to it being used, with some revenge (but not enough for Dustin, thus the belt being introduced in the first place) and a couple of exciting near-falls along the way.

I enjoy a lot of AEW, but I deeply wonder just how many guys on the roster, especially under the age of forty, would be able to do this sort of match. I wonder how many would even understand the value in it. I wonder what we're on the verge of losing over the next few years even as I am acutely aware of what we've already lost. But it doesn't have to be that way. They just did this match on a night where more eyes than normal were upon them. Joe's the locker room leader. Dustin is an coach and a trainer. It's 2024. I'm willing to accept that the point is no longer to do as much as possible with as little as possible, no matter how serene and perfect that sort of manipulation can be. But the goal can still be to make those things that you do mean as much as possible through taking the crowd up and down, through crescendoing throughout the match, through setting things up and paying them off. The formula here can be extrapolated to anything else on the card, even a Takeshita match, and it would probably make the match better, while still highlighting the amazing things other wrestlers could do. There's a skeleton key in this one for anyone who just wants to try to understand it.

AEW Collision 4/13/24

Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli vs Powerhouse Hobbs/Kyle Fletcher

MD: Very long tag. The premise coming in is that Callis wanted them to hurt Danielson, even to the point of fines or suspensions, in order to stack the deck in Ospreay's favor at the PPV. That played out well enough in practice as this had a wild feel for the most part. The BCC were forewarned and prepared, meeting Hobbs/Fletcher head-on for early brawling and high-impact charging blows on the outside. This cycled into the ring for a shine until they were able to use a double or triple blind to allow Fletcher to take over on Castagnoli. That is, Claudio got dumped to the floor errantly and then was distracted by Hobbs, successfully dealt with the distraction, and then and only then, ate a cheapshot by Fletcher. This came up a few times in the match, each cycle more complicated than the last.

That's the advantage and the disadvantage of running tags like this in 2024. We've seen everything. We've seen how transitions in southern tags operate. We've seen the inversions. We've seen the inversions of the inversion. You can just do it, and there's real value to that, but the second you commit to at least one inversion, at least one fake-out in order to fool the fans and leave them guessing, then the train's going and you can't just get off. You have to pick the right stop. Here, they did a pretty good job throughout, both here initially transition to the heat on Claudio, then to cut off hope spots (often in part by eliminating the partner on the apron) and then to cycle through back to the floor after the hot tag to Danielson to take things into the (second, I think?) commercial break. It meant that when Fletcher just got a lucky reversal in to take back over on Danielson, that you were left just a little unsatisfied; once that genie is out of the bottle, you need a bit more thought to a key transition.

Overall it worked though and they were able to shift back from everything breaking down once again into a dynamic and escalated second round of heat on Danielson. For instance, once Claudio had recovered enough to herald Danielson's comeback in a very All Japan sort of way, the big hope spot was Danielson locking in a LeBell Lock, in as he might have gotten the win and not just the hot tag. The match had progressed enough that even though they were in the midst of heat, it still sort of worked. And then it all built to the crowd pleasing stuff, the BCC triumph, and the nefarious post-match to keep the story going. Claudio's a pro at these big TV tags and is only strengthened by having less restraints and more time. I know certain people have certain reservations about Fletcher and I do too, but he has some great instincts when it comes to working the crowd and letting things breathe in between moves. It's just that half of his opponents don't allow for that sort of thing and the star rating economy rewards the exact opposite. He's 25 and if encouraged to keep developing these good habits instead of bad, I'm curious just how he might develop.

By the way, I did watch the Team Kingston vs Team Kidd match from the NJPW show but while it was suitably chaotic with a solid, productive finish, I really wanted more ebbs and flows and momentum shifts instead of specific spots and unbridled mayhem so I'm not going to give it more words than that.