Anarchy In The Arena II - AEW Double Or Nothing (28/5/23)

While I didn't think this was as great a match as the original, this still rocked and was the best thing on the PPV, mirroring the feud being the best thing on Dynamite this last quarter.  

For a chaotic match, lets do a chaotic style review.

What ruled:

• The effort on show.  All 8 guys busted their asses in the match
• Bryan finally wrestling for the first time in 3 months 
• The Elite hitting 4 Terminator suicide dives at the same time.
• So much blood.
• Hangman getting a pop for removing an eyepatch
• Matt doing the northern lights suplexes all the way down the ramp
• The Claudio/Matt sequence was a great showcase of Claudio being a beast with the giant swing into the bin and the piledriver onto the pick up truck.  
• I like how Omega and Mox was a pairing that was a through line during the match given all their history.  
• Matt Jackson getting the barefoot thumbtacks spot was bonkers and had me wincing
• Omega using the trash can lid as a shield and then Claudio swatting it out his hand
• The leafblower
• Bryan ordering Justin Roberts to give him his jacket and remembering the time Bryan got fired for choking Roberts out with his tie
• EXPLODING SUPERKICK TO MOX
• Bryan hitting both Omega and Page with the Busaiku Knees
• Mox telling Matt to fuck off like he's Logan Roy when he tried to break up his BCC elbows 
• Matt eating thumbtacks and then having them uppercuttered out.
• Omega and Hangman teaming up again and remembering their great tag team back in AEW's early years
• Wheeler Yuta getting the decisive pinfall and then being hoisted on Claudio's shoulders in celebration.  Despite teaming with three established stars, Yuta no longer feels like the young boy on his team.  

What prevented this from being as great as the original:

• Wild Thing on a loop was a fantastic addition to the first match.  The live band playing it a bunch of times didn't land as well this time.  Maybe if the band was better it wouldn't have been as bad.  
• There was a stronger babyface/heel dynamic last year.  You wanted to see The Jericho Appreciation Society get their asses kicked last year.  This year, BCC are playing the heels but they're too cool to hate. 
• It ends in a Don Callis interference angle.  Given how dominate and brutal BCC were all match, it's a bit of a weak finish.  

All things considered here, the pros outweight the cons and this was a really enjoyable main event that saved the show.  

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List 

Kenny Omega Vs El Hijo Del Vikingo - AEW Dyanmite 22/2/23

This was your quintessential popcorn/fireworks match where you park your brain for 20 minutes and just let yourself be wowed by the spectacle playing out in front of your eyes. 

I had no doubts that Vikingo would impress on his AEW debut.  His high flying spots are so unique and mind boggling that he was always going to get over with this crowd, especially with a seasoned pro in Kenny Omega as his dance partner to keep up with him.  The implosion rana about a minute in set the tone for the bonkers spots dotted throughout the match, the meteora through the ropes was fantastic, and the multiple dragon rana’s were crazy, and I thought he killed Omega when he countered the top rope powerbomb into a last-second super rana.  We’re talking about a guy that makes Fenix seem about as mobile as Kevin Nash post quad blow out. 

The step up-630 through the table was amazing and probably the pick of the highlight reel.  When Kenny set the table up so close to the apron, I knew it was for the signature Vikingo 630 dive, but that didn’t stop my jaw falling a little closer to the ground at how perfect it was.  I wasn’t around for Rey Mysterio bursting onto the scene in America in the mid 90s, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is how it felt to live through that.

First impressions aren’t an issue for this guy, it’s when you’ve seen him for the 10^th and 11^th time and you’re looking for him to do something other than just all his big spots, something specific to the match and the challenge he’s facing and not just for his opponent to take his moves one after another and not impose themselves on the match.  Unfortunately he’s not always a hit.  I saw him have a match with Fenix last year at AAA which I thought was majorly disappointing because it was nothing but spots and it had no flow and a lot of stalling.  The spot heavy nature of this match worked because it was designed purely as a showcase of Vikingo's abilities, but if he's making more appearances in the future for AEW I think the fans will eventually want more substance out of him.

I have to give credit to Kenny here for being an able match for Vikingo, keeping up with that incredible pace, doing his part to make Vikingo look great by landing everything perfectly, putting some extra vinegar on his offence to make the match feel special and in general doing everything in his power to help make this sensational luchador a star in the US in one night.  Kenny in 2023 looks and feels back to his best.  I think this was better than any match he had during his AEW World title reign, and this is his 2^nd match on my MOTYC list already.  If I could get motivated to write up my thoughts on Omega/Ospreay he’d probably make that 3. 

Kenny won the match eventually at the 17 minute mark with the one winged angel, but Vikingo had won enough new fans along the way to not come away feeling like a loser.  If he wasn’t already a coveted booking on the indies (and beyond!), he certainly is now.  I really enjoyed Bandido’s first night in AEW against Chris Jericho last year, but this was another level.  If they ever bring in Vikingo again they can’t keep him on ice like they have done Bandido.

I would have preferred the Elite’s latest chapter of melodrama to have been saved for another week so that the show’s closing moments be centred on Vikingo with some kind of standing ovation from the crowd or Kenny giving him a sign of respect.  I found the ambulance joy-ride complete with the Scott Steiner sirens to be a hokey callback to the Attitude Era, and the Kenny/Hangman trust issues can get in the bin with Bray Wyatt’s Wrestlemania plans.  Surely Kenny’s gonna take a break from playing Resident Evil 4 this week to watch a replay of Don faking the Hangman attack.

Anyway, I’ll wrap this review up with a request to Tony Khan for the next AEW dream match:

Claudio Vs Vikingo.

Make it so.

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

The Elite Vs House of Black - AEW Revolution (5/3/23)

Hopefully a quick review here as it's been 10 days since the PPV so no need to go too in-depth on a cold topic, but I'm determined to keep an updated MOTYC list this year.

This was a great lesson in tolerance because as many of you know, I do not like The House of Black's gimmick, but this was undeniably awesome.  I'm 34 years old now and I have no use for supernatural gimmicks in wrestling, and that's a firm stance I take whether it's Malakai Black's nonsense in AEW or Bray Wyatt's nonsense in WWE.  This means I really struggle to get into any program that Black, King or Murphy do in AEW because I either skip their vignettes or just roll my eyes through them, which is frustrating because I rate them all highly as workers and think the look of the act is good.  They're a super intimidating trio that all offer something different in the ring rather than being three stylistically similar wrestlers doing a bunch of triple team spots.  

I think that's why this match worked for me a lot more than the recent Elite trios matches against Death Triangle and Top Flight/AR Fox.   It wasn't just a 20 minute match where the action had the same beats regardless of who was in the ring, the action was specific to who was in the ring.  If Buddy was in the ring, he'd showcase his athleticism against the man he's clearly influenced by in Kenny Omega.  If Black was in the ring, he'd look to control things with his martial arts clinches and try to land a killer blow with a kick.  If Brody was in the ring, then the monster was in play.   Brody was the MVP of the match to me.  I think they did a grand job of making the guy look like a beast, the Elite sold for him like crazy when he was on offence, but he had that Vader like quality of selling so convincingly that he still looked like he could be beaten if the babyfaces landed the right combination of moves.  

A word on Julia Hart too.  The brainwashing mist that forced her to wear an eyepatch for months before she finally join The House of Black was really corny shit, but it's done wonders for her career.  She's now a solid part of the stable and has more upside in this gimmick than she ever had before in the Varsity Blondes gimmick.  A highlight of the match was Julia's bump off the accidental V-Trigger which Kenny brushed off like she was asking for it and he didn't give it a seconds thought or remorse about it - That was awesome, too many babyfaces fake concern for managers and valets who deserve to be caught in the crossfire. 

Where this match hit the next level was the nearfalls for either team before the finish.  These were better than nearfalls, these were believable finishes that worked me back and forth.  Firstly Omega eats the Black Mass and then Brody's Dante's Inferno and has to be saved by a Buck a piece.  When Brody does the suicide dive to take out both the Bucks and Omega yet again is staring down the barrel of a 3 on 1 onslaught, I thought the finish was coming as Black lined up the Black Mass, but the bucks made the save again.  Then came The Elite's big comeback with the superkicks and BTE-Trigger, and I was worked yet again that that was the finish.  Buddy Murphy countered the Meltzer Driver with a hellacious knee to Nick Jackson's face which set up the ultimate finish of the Dante's Inferno on Matt Jackson.  I didn't know which way they'd go when the match started, but The House of Black won me over big time as the trio I'm most interested in seeing in AEW and to crown them here felt like the right result.

If they keep delivering in the ring, I'll keep putting up with the Occult vignettes.

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

Mark Briscoe Vs Jay Lethal - AEW Dynamite (25/1/23)

Reach for the sky boy.

This was the Jay Briscoe tribute match between his brother and one of his closest friends after Warner Bros. Discovery finally saw sense and gave permission for AEW Dynamite to acknowledge The Briscoe Brothers and honour the life of Jay.

1. There’s elements of Jay Briscoes passing that have hit me differently to any other wrestling death I’ve experienced as a fan. Along with Brodie Lee, Jay Briscoe is one of the first wrestlers of 'our generation' to pass away. He's someone we've seen grown from teenager to man and that hits a little harder than a wrestler from the 1980s passing away. There's then the nature of the death and how we’re all susceptible to being in a car accident. This isn’t a wrestler dying from an overdose or what have you; This is something that could happen to anyone of us on any given day suddenly. Tell people you love them before you leave the house everyday, because there's no guarantee you'll be returning. There’s also the gutting sting in the tail that this happened on the eve of what could have been Jay Briscoe’s biggest mainstream run of his career. Jay’s career was already a huge ‘what if’ but now there’s another ‘what if’ to throw onto that pile with how the relaunch of ROH weekly programming on the back of a historic trilogy of matches with FTR could have taken his career to the next level. I think as much as the wrestling business offered Jay and his family, it also failed him. It should not have taken his death to get his name mentioned on national television, and there should be room in our society for people to learn from their mistakes and their ignorance and not be ostracised forever because of a horrible tweet nearly a decade ago. How can you not be impressed by Mark Briscoe this week with the strength and peace he is showing in the aftermath of a tragedy? There’s not a bone in his body that is angry about what has happened, not visibly anyway. I'm not about to turn this review into an Evangelist sermon, but as a lifelong Christian myself I'm still floored when I see this level of faith from people and how their faith helps pull them through the tough times in life. Caprice Coleman put it best in a video with Mark about how he thought everyone was coming to the arena to comfort Mark, but in the end it was Mark that comforted all of them and let them know everything was gonna be ok. Jay Lethal comes out to this match visibly choked up and fighting off the tears, probably how I expect most people would feel in his shoes, but then Mark comes out, fired up, holding up both original ROH tag team titles ready to put on a show for 'his boy'. Mark not only stole the show this week on Dynamite, his Eulogy at Jaymin's funeral was a sight to behold as well. What a guy. I know this is secondary to everything else, but the match rocked too. You can bet your house that an episode of Dynamite in 2023 will produce a very good match, and Mark and Lethal took the honour of match of the night this week. It shouldn’t go understated either that this would have been (to my knowledge) the first time Mark would have wrestled on live television in his career.

For the first minute of this match everything was very respectful, textbook wrestling drill stuff. But then Lethal threw in a cheapshot chop when backing out of the corner, and Mark responded with 'lets do this' and fired back with a chop of his own. The match then turned into a hard hitting scrap, something more befitting of a tribute to Jay Briscoe. Any newcomers to Mark Briscoe's work were treated to his Chicken style of Kung Fu. Don't let the squawking fool you, Mark chops just as hard as anyone in the business. I loved that Mark rolling out of the ring after the Lethal Injection gave the commentators the perfect excuse to bring out the classic story of Mark having the highest IQ of the ROH lockeroom. The froggy bow through the table was a great high spot that put over that this ain't your regular tribute match, this ain't Bret Hart having the sort of match he would have had with Owen against Benoit on Nitro. This is Mark Briscoe having the sort of match he did have Jay as kids wrestling on their trampoline in their backyard.

Mark winning with the Jay Driller was the obvious finish, but I loved how Mark had to go for it 4 or 5 times before it worked so that the payoff was even more satisfying. It came off like Mark was stubborn and fully committed to winning only via his brother's finisher, sometimes to his detriment when Lethal always had a counter for it.

Before I finish up, I want to give some praise on Ian and Caprice on commentary who I think masterfully nailed the tone of the evening while still calling the action as if it was just as important as their heart-felt tributes and stories about their friend Jay. I always enjoy those two guys together in ROH but here they were a perfect accompaniment for this match and they did Jay proud just as Mark did. I watched this match right after watching some of the Royal Rumble where I had to endure Pat McAfee ruining the event by bringing Michael Cole down to his childish, distracting, look at me everybody level, so I was in even more of an appreciative mood for good commentary and how it can enhance the work of the wrestlers in the ring.

I've nothing else to say but God Bless The Briscoe Brothers.

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

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Bryan Danielson Vs Bandido - AEW Dynamite (18/1/23)

This was part of Bryan Danielson's series of matches that he has to win in order to receive his title match with MJF at Revolution.  There's not much surprise or drama in the result of these matches as Bryan is obvious going to keep winning otherwise the angle is dead, but I'm never gonna complain at an angle that involves weekly Danielson matches.  So far the best part of this angle is the variety of opponents Danielson is facing, going from the puro bomb throwing match last week against Konosuke Takeshita, to more of a lucha mat based style against Bandido this week, with more variety to come next week when he's the underdog against Brian Cage.  2022 saw Bryan work very samey types of matches against JAS members on a loop, so I am all in on this angle at the moment with Bryan branching out against guys he's never faced before.  

Excalibur on commentary put over Bryan's respect for the Mexican, llave, mat-based submission style of wrestling and how Blue Panther is his favourite Luchador.  I couldn't help but remember the interviews Bryan's done in the past where he claims the reason he grew his hair so long is because one day he wants to work apuestas matches in Mexico.  18 months after leaving WWE we're yet to see Bryan take a trip to Arena Mexico, so maybe this is as close to that apuestas match as we'll ever get from Bryan.

The words that come to mind about this match are 'heavy' and 'struggle'.  There were a lot of moments in the match where it felt like each guy had to deadlift their opponent into whatever armdrag or suplex or submission move they wanted to pull off.   There wasn't much obvious cooperation in this match that you sometimes get, especially when guys are trying to show off their technical ability, and I think a match is all the better for it when it looks like someone is actively trying to block or escape a move rather than go along for the ride.  The disadvantage of that approach means that the moves don't come off looking as perfect as they usually do, but I'll accept that trade.  You can still get some beautiful moments in amongst the messier moments.  That spot where Bryan's in a pin with his legs and arms tied up so he has to utilise his neck and body strength to lift himself off the mat was super impressive and has been stuck in my mind ever since I saw it.  

In the Bandido/Jericho match I reviewed last year, I wrote about how good that match was at showcasing Bandido's talents, particularly his surprising strength.  I actually think this match does a better job at highlighting Bandido's strength and control, especially when he had to adjust mid-hold for the delayed vertical suplex to turn Bryan from the Leaning Tower of Pisa into the Empire State Building.  I think this is one of the more well-rounded and frankly better performances I've ever seen out of Bandido.  The match had much more of a solid connective tissue to it and didn't just feel like a tiktok reel of his crazy highspots.  If I could get 50% less gun taunts I might just be jumping on the Bandido-Bandwagon after all these years.  

That theme of struggle in the match ran all the way to it's concluding moments when Bandido initially countered the Lebell Lock by lifting Bryan off the floor, only for Bryan to stubbornly fight back and push off of Bandido's thighs to escape seconds before hitting the Busaiku knee to end it just before the 18 minute mark.  AEW's had a good start to TV matches this year what with Bryan and Darby wrestling at least once a week and the huge Hangman/Moxley match last week, but this was my favourite offering from AEW so far in 2023.  

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

Chris Jericho Vs Bandido - AEW Dynamite (30/9/22)

I’ve seen a lot of talk online about whether Chris Jericho’s having the best year of his career in 2022.  There has definitely been an improvement in the last 12 months from where he was one of the worst wrestlers from any major promotion in 2021, but the cynic in me can’t look past him just being booked against some of the greatest wrestlers of this generation in Danielson, Kingston, Moxley and Claudio who hide his flaws better.  This week’s Dynamite main event however was a bigger test in my eyes because frankly I don’t enjoy Bandido matches.  There’s no doubting his talent, but I’ve seen enough crazy spotfest matches out of him against the likes of Speedball Mike Bailey and Flamita that I’m after something more, something deeper.  Facing a 51 year old Chris Jericho in a debut match for AEW should hopefully provide something different.

Jericho starts off by mocking the code of honour with AEW’s favourite gesture – the middle finger.  They do a really nice job of highlighting Bandido’s strengths as a wrestler which is bread and butter for any debut match.  It starts off simple enough with a suicide dive, but the dives and topes increase with rotations and difficulty as things progress.  That might not seem so special for your modern day luchador, but when he starts breaking out the moves that put over how physically strong he is, you see another side to his game.  I was surprised to see the one-handed gorilla press used during the first commercial break to a limited audience, but that was to be quickly dwarfed when they came back to TV and Bandido pulled out the 1 minute delayed vertical suplex to rush all the blood and vodka to Jericho’s head.  Philly stopped counting after 30 seconds but they popped big when Jericho was finally planted to the canvas. 

At 51 years old, Jericho is never going to hit the codebreaker or lionsault with the same smoothness as he used to, but he’s experienced enough to lay out matches that work well and improvise when an opportunity arises.  When Bandido starts to bleed through his white mask, Jericho’s smart enough to target it with some knees or punches during the transition of the match’s bigger moves which I always appreciate.  Jericho’s also good at linking movesets together – I particularly enjoyed Bandido countering Jericho’s corner dropkick into a middle rope sunset flip powerbomb, but also the X-Knee being reversed into the Walls of Jericho was a great spot too.  Some things didn’t always come off looking great, the crucifix bomb was rough around the edges, but nothing that hurt the match.  I joked when the match was announced that surely the Spanish Fly-Fallaway Slam wasn’t going to happen in this match, but here I am with egg on my face because those crazy bastards went for it.  It wasn’t picture perfect, but no-one died!

The 2nd attempt of the X-Knee connects and it’s followed up by the 21-Plex but Jericho survives it.  Sigh.  Once again Bandido feels the need to every big move he has, even when he’s losing.  If the rumours are true that he’s been offered a full time deal with AEW, then I would have liked to see a bit of restraint here as I’ve already seen the big Bandido match on day 1 so where do you go from there.  The same exact moves in the same order against Fenix? Probably.  As with a lot of 2022 Jericho matches where the going gets too tough, he has to resort to cheating so with a poke of the eye and a tug of the mask, he finds himself locking in the liontamer on Bandido.  The commentary team do a great job of pointing out that Bandido’s mask is now covering his eyes and with Jericho’s knee on his head he can’t see how close to the ropes he is so he feels the need to tap out.   Really good TV main event and first defence for Jericho, but I’m not sure I got my ‘something different’ out of Bandido.

After the match Jericho cut a promo setting him up to face other former ROH World Champions in the future.  I was surprised to see him set up a match with Danielson so soon as that felt like a natural end point of this Jericho title run, but maybe that’ll end up being Daniel Garcia.  I do find it a bit petty that they’re calling Chris Jericho the most famous ROH Champion ever, and then when listing names of former champions they leave off the name CM Punk.  Regardless, Tony Khan should make the call to Low Ki for a one off appearance.  I’m good without seeing the Dalton Castle and Jay Lethal matches against Jericho – give the people what they want from this program.

Ed