AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/16 - 12/22 Part 2

AEW Collision 12/21/24

Claudio Castagnoli vs Darby Allin

MD: This had a great beginning and a great finishing stretch and both were somewhat invalidated by what immediately happened thereafter. Claudio is a guy who, like Christian, is used to working matches against the same opponent multiple times. While Christian is a genius in that area, Claudio is no slouch. The C2 in general has allowed him to play upon spots and finishes and invert them over time.

In this case, Claudio and Darby played off the start of their last match together, where Claudio kept moving out of the way whenever he got knocked to the floor early, thwarting Darby's attempt to dive on him. This time, he didn't wait for the bell. Instead he leaped right at Claudio, clinging on to him all the way up the ramp and enabling the balcony dive. That was a great start considering what had come before, but I don't think it meant much in the grand scheme of the match. Once the bell rang, Claudio hit a lifter and followed it with a ridiculous Giant Swing. That did give him the advantage but it also gave him a huge round of applause. Remember, this is the guy who betrayed Bryan Danielson. At times, the crowd is going to have to "give it to him" because he is so impressive but doing one of the biggest swings ever in AEW in front of this slightly smarkier crowd was probably a mistake. There's been too many such things out of Claudio as of late and it's not doing any favors for the Deathriders storyline, already struggling as it's cordoned off into one small area of the main event and not creating any overarching effect on the show overall (save for the first few weeks). 

Of course these two are a natural pair for heat and hopespots and comeback and it was all impressive. I liked how Claudio would at times just lift Darby up by the waist and that's something he ought to do more if he can. And then the finishing stretch hit just right with another big spot through a table on the floor, and Claudio going for his recent finishing move, that clothesline after an opponent barely makes it in from the count. Sometimes patterns can get too repetitive and take you out of a match because it's no longer believable but I buy these guys getting into this situation given the physical force that is Claudio Castagnoli. So Darby ducks it and they keep going through levels of escalation, with Darby finally getting hit with it and kicking out, with Claudio going for the Ricola Bomb only for Darby to turn it into a Code Red, for Claudio to get his knees up on the Coffin Drop, and then to hit the Ricola Bomb leading to a kickout not once but twice. With anyone else it might be a bit much but with Darby, at this point so late in the C2 it felt like proper escalation.

It built to a pretty clever finish where Claudio, frustrated by Darby's resilience in the face of his best moves, went for a chair. The ref took it and when distracted, Claudio hit him with knucks. Clever finish, right? 

One little problem.

Red Velvet had turned heel the night before doing it to Leyla Hirsch in an even more clever way since she used a turnbuckle rod and a hidden wrench she had gotten from under the ring. Same finish (which is not a common finish! I've barely ever seen the sort of switcheroo played out here, ever!) two nights in a row in front of the same crowd, one of which being a heel turn. Not to mention that the knucks would be a better gimmick for Velvet anyway as a puncher (I've got a campaign going for her to dust off the Heart Punch; I think it'd be unique and super over). I don't even know what to say. I haven't seen a lot of complaining online so they probably get away with it, but you'd almost have to put Velvet in the Deathriders and say that Claudio had been inspired by her actions or something otherwise to cover it. They lucked out I guess, but it, like the Swing and the opening flourish not meaning anything, definitely put a blemish on an otherwise excellent match. 

ROH Final Battle 12/20/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs The Righteous (Double Bullrope Match)

MD: This was a good complete package with a solid build that added something different (and violent) to a pretty well put together PPV overall. I think, especially given the build, I would have wanted a bit more of a straight brawl instead of something so plunder-filled with tables and ladders and what have you, but that's hard to avoid in almost any match of this sort in the era that we live in. We see what Blood and Guts and War Games look like these days. 

That said, my favorite parts of this were when Dutch and Dustin were brawling out on the ramp (even if it devolved quickly into Dutch's Bossman slam) and surprisingly Sammy laying in forearms on Vincent on the floor (which quickly led to Sammy hitting the post and eating an Orange Sunshine). I could have used about thirty percent more of that (or sixty, or ninety, but I get it). Speaking of Sammy taking that, despite the Tornado Tag nature, they did a good job of getting people out of the way so that the big themes could play out, most especially through Dutch going through the barbed wire table of course. And Sammy wiping out as well. 

I thought those key moments hit. The nearfalls with Sammy making a last second save all worked for me. What worked even more was how at one key juncture, it was Vincent, having escaped the Rope, using it to choke out Dustin. You'd expect that moment and the subsequent comeback by Dustin to belong to Dutch, and Dutch was the one Dustin beat in the end, but despite the familial connection being Dutch's, Vincent was the one who was pulling the strings, and in this case, pulling the rope around Dustin's neck. 

At some point, I really would like to see AEW/ROH trust in a crowd to do a more minimalist brawl, especially when there's a solidly built issue like this one, but maybe this wasn't the match for that (I'm not entirely sure Dustin feels like what he has to offer along those lines is enough for a 2024 audience, though it is, 100% because no one can do it like he can). It certainly wasn't the crowd. More on that momentarily. 

Athena vs Billie Starkz

MD: When you look at a match as a thought experiment interesting things can happen. In this case, they were putting together and executing a match with over a year of build, yes, but also with just a few weeks of build, but more importantly, one where most of the crowd and the audience watching at home weren't actually familiar with either. That's fascinating. I had misgivings about the build, which I noted last week, but the reaction online didn't pick up on my misgivings at all; instead people were just frustrated that Billie didn't win on her second chance and that Athena wasn't freed up to go to the main roster. 

It showed a clear lack of understanding of the week to week storytelling that was occurring. Tourists dipping in on ROH for a PPV and the year end PPV at that, and ones with ulterior motives and interests as well. They didn't plan on hanging around ROH so they wanted Athena where they could more easily and regularly see her. They're more familiar with the idea of Billie Starkz than the Billie Starkz who has been on screen in 2024 and more than that, the idea of an idea of someone like Billie Starkz, a young talent beloved because of her indie run who was ready to take a title. 

I won't speak to real life, but on screen, she wasn't. She absolutely wasn't ready to win. I know everyone made fun of Heyman noting how early the Bloodline storyline was in being completed, but here it's valid. Billie hasn't even really seen the light yet. She's still a heel. She's just a bullied, put upon heel who petulantly stomped her foot until she got a title shot. She wanted more attention not Athena. She didn't outright claim that Athena was evil or wrong or had to be stopped. If anything, she was trying to be her own Athena. If their match last year really got her established in MIT, then ultimately this one should start the road for her to leave it and find herself, but I'm not 100% that's the path they're going to take with her. I do think Athena is headed for bigger and better things, at least in the short term. I'd like to see Billie get some different mentor but outside of Emi Sakura (and wouldn't that be interesting?), no one in house really fits the bill. 

I thought the match itself was good. Just to focus on the finishing stretch, the moment where Athena clearly has an advantage and could go for the O-Face but chooses to use the mic instead out of paranoia/a lack of more fiber/Lexy wanting to please her and then almost losing because of that was a perfect character beat. And that moment in the corner after she had eaten Billie's finisher once and ended up back on her shoulders with the turnbuckle pad in hand is an absolutely perfect encapsulation of Athena as a talent. Yes she's agile. Yes she's believable. But it's her emotiveness in the moment! She went from the worry that she was up in the electric chair position to the surprise that she had the turnbuckle pad in her hand to the savvy bit of control that she could hit the poison rana all within a split second and it played out on her face like a method actor. She was living it and it was all organic and not overwrought. No one else in wrestling today can do that. 

But yeah, it must be weirdly aggravating to book a PPV more or less how you should, but having the fans just unprepared for what they're about to see. The 2024 ROH PPVs have a much better build than 2023 ROH PPVs, with the TV really setting things up, even if I don't agree with every decision, but it's almost wasted on the audience that tunes in a couple of times a year relative to the crazy sort of sickos matches they were doing without build previously. Like I said, an interesting thought experiment. This match certainly deserved a better reception online overall.