AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/7 - 9/13 Part 2

The House Always Wins 4/9/21

Darby Allin vs The Butcher

MD: Let's just look at the story at play here. Let's just jump right into it. So much of what Andy Williams brought to the table as the Butcher was being exactly what pro wrestling needed in the moment and sometimes that's just being in the right place at the right time with the right commitment to the right character, a dedication to serve the moment and to let himself be a formidable mountain to conquer.

AEW's first, and for quite a while only house show. Darby Allin is your TNT champion. He's got a match against Matt Hardy on the upcoming Dynamite. Hardy currently had the Hardy Family Office which included The Butcher, Blade, and Bunny. He was Big Money Matt. The show started with a battle royal in order to decide who was going to face off against Darby for the title in the main event. Classic house show stuff.

The Battle Royal was full of Dark Order members. It had Hobbs and Starks, Page and Scorpio, the Gunns, Archer, and others. Butcher's in it, but you don't see him as much. Occasionally he'll be clobbering or clobbering someone here or there. It's not actually the dominant battle royal performance you usually would get out of him, but it doesn't need to be. There's some tomfoolery around one of the sides of the ring being a ramp that ends up eliminating quite a few people. Butcher does get one great elimination with a gourdbuster to the floor on Stu Grayson where Grayson's head lands on the apron on the way down. 

It came  down to the four biggest men, 10, Archer, Hobbs, and Butcher. A pretty well put together battle royal all things considered. I loved the finish of the Butcher Battle Royal with Daniel Garcia finding the strength to overcome the odds, loved it. I loved some specific moments too whether it was Eddie beelining for Claudio or Darius Martin's swinging 'rana using the turnbuckle on the floor, or basically all the Beast Mortos stuff, but it was set up with people cycling in and out. 

This was just a mass of humanity. Probably harder to manage, but I appreciated the effect of it overall. Even just a few years later, you have less battle royals that feel like this. You end up with the four big guys and Butcher was able to (as the one exception to what I just said, which is what made it work!) lay out on the floor after eating a spinebuster and then capitalize to win it, with a little help from his stablemates. 

Post-match, Hardy is proud of his man, and provides everyone with a villain speech. Butcher will win. When he does, he will be well compensated to hand the belt over to Hardy on Dynamite. And if he didn't win? Well, that was fine by Matt too, because he'd break Darby so much in the process that he'd be easy pickings on Wednesday. Butcher? He was fine with all of this. He liked the sound of "well compensated." He and Blade, more than almost any other wrestlers of the decade, were presented as mercenaries. For the Hurt Syndicate, it's a business, right? For Butcher and Blade, it was a way of life. That's how they were presented and Butcher leaned fully into it, no matter who he might have been when he took the monocle off. Total immersion.

That set the stage. This was a house show but everything fit perfectly into what was happening. Darby vs Butcher, on paper, wasn't a main event in any arena in the world. It just wasn't. That doesn't meant it wasn't an appealing match. It doesn't mean that it wasn't going to be a good one, but by tying things to the battle royal and then by grounding everything in a bigger story, the match became bigger than it would have been otherwise. It felt important, like a hidden chapter that only these fans were going to get to see. 

we like Darby Allin around here. At this point in 2021, I was barely familiar with him even if the site overall was. He's younger. Five years for Darby is like dog years for most people. He's more grizzled now, more like the skeleton whose image he embodies. He was younger then, came off as more vulnerable in some ways. You could see the bruises on him even before the match. You just took them for granted in a way that looking back now maybe you don't. Butcher had mutton chops and a skullet, bald or mostly bald on top. 

He was, of course, a mass of humanity, a big dude. Like I said, we like Darby. I like Darby. He's very interesting against an opponent like Knight or Ospreay or MJF, maybe bigger or stronger, but not too much so. Then it becomes a game of chess, of pushing an opponent to keep up with Darby and seeing what happens when they try. You put him against someone like this, or Samoa Joe, or even Claudio or Mark Davis, and it's an entirely different story. It becomes David vs Goliath, except for David is a crash test dummy who uses his own body as the rock in his slingshot. It's absolutely primal stuff.

One of my favorite things about Darby is that he almost always comes in with a strategy. He defines the start of a match in a way that plausibly allows him to bridge gaps. Here, unsurprisingly but still shockingly, he threw himself feet first at Butcher. When Butcher stumbled to the floor, he followed with a head-first dive. There was a particular desperate viciousness to Darby as he slammed Butcher into the rail repeatedly. Then he used that self-same head to roll Butcher over for a pin. It was a great way to put over the size difference and how difficult everything was, but also how determined Darby was.

The transition came quickly and brutally as Matt Hardy asserted himself on the apron. Darby took him out but that left him open for Butcher to use HIS own body, launching Darby through the ropes and to the floor. He followed that up by getting some immediate revenge with the guardrails, and it was clear sailing from there. The Butcher was going to work.

There was a little twist to all of his offense. He didn't just hit a vertical suplex; he got Darby up there and tossed him. He didn't just hit a flapjack or gutbuster but instead combined the two. And he fell forward on the power bomb, driving Darby down. Meanwhile, he played with his food, pushing at Darby's head, chopping him in the ropes. This let Darby stay in the match, get some hope, start to fire back, only to get cut off by Butcher's alarming quickness and overwhelming power. 

At one point Darby got his feet up on a corner charge and created some distance, but Butcher was there with basically a sliding cross chop straight to the face. Another time, Darby went to the fingers to create an opening to throw strikes and hit shotgun dropkicks, but Butcher caught him, put him first in the Cloverleaf, and then, of course, power bombed him out of it. Butcher struck from odd angles with great ferocity and it created a hell of a mood.

The damage had been done though. Darby took every opportunity, snatching Butcher's hand and slamming it into the post on the outside. Butcher showed just enough vulnerability that Darby was able to turn that little wedge into a massive opportunity. Before, when Darby tried to use his speed, Butcher had been able to catch him and cut him off. Now, a half step slow, reeling from his ailing hand, Butcher couldn't keep up and Darby darted around him. Even when he did get his hands on Darby, Darby could go right back to the hand, like he did in cutting off a Superplex. There was a last attempt by the Hardy Family Office to interfere, but by that point the tide had turned, and Darby was able to string together a few big moves in order to put Butcher down. 

It was a sub-ten minute match, but very smart in how they worked it. Darby had his one burst at the start but then immediately got swept under. Butcher then stretched with his brutal, interesting offense, adding insult to injury between moves but also, in doing so, allowing Darby to get in little moments of hope. They worked in the damage to the hand as a wedge for Darby to push through to even footing and then had him overcome even Blade's interference to valiantly win the day. Post-match, they beat down upon Darby to build to the following match until the locker room emptied out to make the save.
  
So despite this being a house show, despite this not being televised, it gave the fans something unique that fit perfectly into at least one of the storylines happening on TV. It gave the illusion of progression while not leaving out anyone who couldn't see it which is exactly what you want from a house show and more than most house shows in history have been able to provide. 

And what made it work as much as anything else? Just how good Andy Williams was at committing completely into his role, at playing into his strengths, at making the most out of his moments on top and being open and willing and equally committed to being vulnerable when it was time for Darby to come back. He was able to help make eight minutes feel more satisfying than 15 and help send everyone home happy. Even despite his relative role on the card, he fit right into the broader story they were telling and served the moment, the match, and the company overall. You ask me, that's pretty great pro wrestling and this was a really enjoyable piece of business. While I wish it'd be a hundred more times instead, I'm glad that we got to see Williams ply his trade (and letting the Butcher ply his) at least one last time.