AEW Dynamite 12/4/24 Darby Allin vs Komander MD: Full disclosure. I want to talk about Kyle Fletcher and Daniel Garcia, even briefly, and I'll do that down below in something of a C2 roundup. I don't want to shortchange this match though. Even within AEW where we have all sorts of match-ups on a weekly basis, the C2 is unique. I'd argue that this year's is even more unique than last year's. Last year you had RUSH in there, sure, but he's a little more conventional, a lucha brawler. Likewise Andrade who had worked a more conventional US style for years. This year, the C2 really shows the dive ..read more

Luis Martinez vs. Hans Hermann NWA Chicago 1960 MD: Another one that Charles posted a while ago that we're just getting to now. This one went through Lee first as the length would have probably had me deprioritize it. It's only five minutes but it's five very fun minutes with a few comedy spots that I've never seen before. Hermann had a foot on Martinez and was an evil German with a chin to match. He ground Martinez down early with nerve ("muscle") holds and the sort. When Martinez took over, he never really looked back. He went for a waistlock and Hermann crashed his fists down to break it ..read more

Week 41: Puerto Rico 1991 EB: As 1991 approaches, we have a couple of pending results from the 1990 Christmas Day show. We’ve already talked about Bronco #1 winning the Caribbean title, Sasha regaining the Women's World title from Monster Ripper, Scott Hall turning on Giant Warrior, and the Super Medicos defeating Eric Embry & Rick Valentine in a fire match. Still, there are two key results we need to mention. The first result is the tag match between Invader #1 and TNT vs. the Texas Hangmen. The Hangmen's strategy for this match was focusing their attacks on one opponent, resulting in TNT ..read more

41. 1979.08.XX1 - 01 Cheryl Day vs. Tomi Aoyama K: I usually do my write-ups going through the match chronologically while trying to explain my thoughts rather than just doing a play-by-play. I’m going to break that habit here though because this match really felt they started with that spectacular finish in mind and then worked backwards. Tomi counters an Irish Whip with a top rope boomerang into a flying bodypress for the three count. I thought this spot was ahead of its time when I saw Manami Toyota do it in the mid-90s so imagine my shock learning that someone was doing this in 1979. In m ..read more

AEW Dynamite 11/27/24 Darby Allin vs Brody King MD: Darby's an interesting case right now, in general and for the tournament. He's the guy. He almost has to be, right? He's 31. He's the heir to Sting. He's been positioned as the one making the big dramatic over the top saves recently. We're also relatively early into the Moxley run. And there's a mountain between them and the finale. Everett looms and Darby has to be protected but he can't be launched into the stratosphere until it's time. He can't peak too early because he's got a peak to climb.  Wrestling doesn't have to seem real. It h ..read more

  9. Chris Jericho vs. Minoru Suzuki AEW Dynamite 7/24/24 ER: I cannot stand modern matches with long bad-looking stand and trade sections, and that's what makes up the bulk of this match between two guys whose wrestling matches I no longer look forward to seeing. "Hey man you hear about that match where two guys just traded forearms for a half hour" yeah man I'm never going to watch it or read about it. Why would I want to watch two wrestlers throw worked strikes with a hard strike thrown in maybe every fifth exchange? Well, I guess there are rules, and there are exceptions to rules, and ..read more

Ricky Steamboat vs. Bob Orton Jr. WWF 3/6/86 MD: We've got a trio of matches from Richard Land's patreon that weren't in ready circulation here. It's worth checking out. There's a well known Steamboat vs Orton match from Landover in 85 and this is a good partner to that. They go fairly long here (I thought it was headed to a draw actually, especially after Orton survived the flying body press), and it's relatively back and forth thought with fairly lengthy stretches of momentum. Orton's a bump machine here, flipping into the corner and flying all over the place for Steamboat's shots. Likew ..read more

40. 1979.07.31 - 03 Jackie Sato vs. Monster Ripper (WWWA Singles Title) K: This is advertised as a death match. It’s no DQ or countouts, but the meaning of that is a bit different in this era to modern times, it’s really just guaranteeing the crowd that they will see a definitive finish rather than they’ll see someone get exploded or something. Right from the start Jackie goes after Monster’s injured knee. She doesn’t wait for Monster to do something unsporting first before resorting to that. It might come across as heelish out of context, but after everything we’ve seen Monster do in the mo ..read more

AEW Full Gear 11/23/24 MJF vs Roderick Strong MD: I have a soft spot for AEW. No big surprise. I write about it every week, right? Part of why is that it really made me care about modern American wrestling again. And the thing about caring is that you get invested. And sometimes that investment takes you good places and sometimes it doesn't, but it's always better than not caring at all.  I can't think of a moment in the last couple of years where I was more invested than the very start of the MJF vs Ospreay All In match. I had been watching MJF's American Title run, vs Oku, vs Templario ..read more

  10. Tony Nese/Ariya Daivari vs. Brody King/Malakai Black AEW Rampage 7/12/24 ER: Kings of the Black Throne? House of Black was fine, but it wasn't enough so now I have to type out something truly stupid to refer to a monster finally wrestling like a monster and a jaundice-thighed Dutch kickboxer. What's happening with the AEW jaundice tan? We established orange as the ridiculous tan color for two decades and suddenly the Big Yellow 5 feels emboldened by a lax FDA to start branching out into other areas, away from sodas with a high school reputation for shrinking dicks. I don't know what ..read more