2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Danielson vs. Garcia

 

11. Bryan Danielson vs. Daniel Garcia AEW Rampage 12/8/23

ER: Matt already wrote an insanely in-depth analysis of this match back when it actually happened, touching on storyline elements that wouldn't have even crossed my mind while watching the match, and does one of my favorite wrestling review things (that I am mostly intellectually incapable of doing) which is to look inside - and perhaps beyond - the possible intentions of what two wrestlers were working towards. As in, reading Matt's reviews, I often find myself thinking that he knows more about the match stories and intentions behind structure and build than the actual wrestlers in the matches. Importantly, he manages to do so without ever coming off like he thinks he knows more than them. He can take visuals in front of him and apply meaning to them where, perhaps, the wrestlers themselves had no meaning, and gift them something deeper. Our brains all view wrestling slightly different, and Matt has an ability to go a bit deeper in viewing wrestling. My mostly useless little review is going to be more like "DaMn DaNiElSoN KiCkS HARD!!!!!"

It's safe to say I am likely spoiled by Bryan Danielson matches, because I am kind of tired of Bryan Danielson matches. They are so repeatedly good in so many similar ways that, stepping back from it, makes me wish we actually did get any of these Danielson Style Changes that he has been hinting at over the years. We get teased with different Danielsons but at the end of the day his matches still feel like the same quality of Danielson work we saw in 2013. We could have gotten full Danielson BattlArts - he is clever enough to work BattlArts style violently and safely - but we only get part of it and never the full commitment. We could have had maestro lucha Danielson, we know he's capable of doing compelling mat matches with some basing, but it has only been teased. These styles have been sacrificed at the altar of Reliably Great Matches. This was a great match, but to me these Great Danielson Matches have felt like by and large the same match for a very long time now. There are standouts and next level exceptions, but to me it feels like every Danielson match passes a certain quality line while staying below a next level experience. 

It's impossible to get to that level of the 2013 Cena or 2018 Brock match. You can't get to that level with a good wrestler like Garcia, and so, Danielson gets the Garcia match to his expected level. And yes, every single Danielson leg kick looked brutal, even match finishing. He was not holding back on Garcia's hamstring. Every hit looked severely damaging, and the match easily could have been built around Danielson just demolishing this leg. But it wasn't built like that, and instead the vicious kicks made every single miss look weaker and mapped out, not throwing misses anywhere near the same as he throws hits. But this isn't really a vet stomping out an upstart, it's more a vet who almost allows an upstart to try some things and then responds with something worse. When Garcia tries to mimic something Danielson did it never goes quite as effectively. It felt like too many things looked worthy of finishing the match, and I think the more they went to those extremes the more it weakened the match after. When Danielson hit a Gotch piledriver and rolled it into a triangle choke, ending with him holding a triangle while sitting on Garcia's chest and throwing punches...I don't know how that didn't end the match, let alone wind up leading to an entire third act after. It didn't come off - to me - like Garcia weathering and persevering, it felt like an escape that was necessary to continue the match and get to the other plans. 

There's been a distinct lack of selling in a lot of AEW Danielson matches, and he tends to encourage it from his opponents too. When Garcia was leaning allllll the way back on the "Dragontamer", making Danielson's heels touch his ass, I was left wondering what damage at all he had weathered. Nothing Danielson did seemed to have any effect on Garcia, and vice versa. Anything done to accumulate damage, didn't. The effective things were the ways they left themselves open, like Garcia leaving his chin open during that Dragontamer, allowing Danielson to hook it. The damage didn't ever seem to lead to anything, but the openings while delivering damage lead to the best parts of the match. In the theme of paying receipts back more viciously, Danielson delivers his trapped arm stomps to the jaw FAR meaner, and I love this meanness. I guess I just wish this meanness felt like it was in service to something bigger, and not in service to checking off the list of things happening in his Great Matches. 

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST