House of Black vs. Death Triangle & Erick Redbeard
This was a pretty fun trios match. Being on the buy-in, it meant that the crowd was gonna be fresh & energetic as hell, which obviously boosted the overall energy of the thing. It was kind of what you would expect from a match like this. Went a tad bit too long for sure, but that usually comes with the package. I thought that BIG RED was an absolutely awesome addition; the whole backstory of PAC bringing him in to combat the House of Black's big man in Brody King is already badass as hell, and he wrecked shit up in the actual match. THE VINTNER. DEFINITELY my favorite dude in the thing. He was great. Love to see it. **3/4
Chris Jericho vs. Eddie Kingston
I spent my years disliking the crap out of Chris Jericho & what he had to offer, but in recent times, I've really come to appreciate the work he is doing right now. I think he's been consistently pretty damn good in these non-main event AEW PPV matches, and here he was going against one of the best wrestlers in the entire company, so I kinda knew that this would rule. And rule it did. Both guys understood the assignment, as they say: Jericho going heel, being a smacktalking, ref-confronting, orbital-bone-injury-exposing confident veteran was awesome, and Eddie shone like a motherfucker doing his work as the lovable street fighter underdog busting out his super energetic & explosive ass bursts of offense. Badass strikes & big throws galore, as usual with him. An absolute banger of a PPV opener. ***1/2
Jurassic Express vs. reDRagon vs. The Young Bucks
The big story here is the relationship between the reDRagon fellas & The Young Bucks. Worst case scenario, it could've completely overtaken this match in the corniest way possible, but thankfully that didn't end up happening. This was fine. Fine, yet very nothing-saying by the end of it. I thought that the champs were by far the MVPs of the thing; Jungle Boy being his athletic charismatic self + Luchasaurus kipping up at seconds notice, doing wild ass moonsaults & most importantly, throwing fools around, it was all some good shiet. Fish & O'Reilly on the other hand actively brought the energy down; my interest deffo went down every time they tagged in. Very inconsistent duo, those two. The only good & cool thing about them here was hearing Excalibur call THE NIGEL for the first time in years. The Bucks were The Bucks. Always good, but not necessarily very interesting. **
Christian Cage vs. Keith Lee vs. Orange Cassidy vs. Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Ricky Starks vs. Wardlow
This had a fun dynamic with one half of the match being regular-sized human beings, and then the other half being 3 very large men. It was a solid match. Offered nothing new or stand-out when it comes to multi-man ladder matches, but that's kind of the starting-expectation anyways going into these things. It didn't overstay its welcome & it was designed brilliantly to put over Wardlow, so it certainly wasn't bad. **
Jade Cargill vs. Tay Conti
This was thankfully kept short. Felt messy for the most part, but I can appreciate the sprint'ish nature of it and there was _some_ good bits of offense here n' there. So basically it's not a good match by any means, but the length made it an easy viewing. *1/2
CM Punk vs. MJF
PUNK LOOKING LIKE HE HAS A FIRE INSIDE. MISERIA CANTARE. THE JACKET. THE SHORTS. An entrance I won't forget anytime soon, my god. This was pretty damn great. Exactly the type of violence that a Dog Collar Match should offer. Defined heel-babyface roles w/ both roles being rocked excellently, great hate-filled feeling throughout the entire thing, great offense, great selling, big moments that are treated as big moments, fantastic crimson mask by Punk, a feel-good ending. It didn't have the insane first-viewing impact on me that their first match did, but it still was undeniably great in my eyes. Love Your Hate & that stuff. ****
Britt Baker vs. Thunder Rosa
This was definitely better of the 2 women's matches on the card. With that being said though, it definitely suffered from having to follow Punk & MJF, as there wasn't much heat from the crowd for the thing. To be fair though, Britt & Rosa managed to get them pretty into it by the end. The fuckery at the end is unfortunate for a PPV match, but it is what it is. All in all, this was just a basic, solid pro-rasslin match. Nothing particularly good, certainly nothing memorable, but perfectly fine. **
Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley
Oh hell yeah, baby. This is what we're here for. It was exactly the kind of violent, gritty pro-wrestling it promised to be. Bryan Danielson & Jon Moxley style. The crazy thing is that even though it was so fucking great, it easily could've been even greater if it was a bit tighter package & the crowd was more into it, I feel. But as implied, that's really just a minor note, because this was absolutely awesome. Full of gnarly output by both men; moments like Bryan's crossface shots during the LeBell Lock, Moxley blocking the incoming headstomps in awesome fashion, all the slaps, Bryan's work over Moxley's mid-section throughout w/ them vicious kicks n' knees, the whole finish w/ the Triangle where Bryan punched the shit out of Mox's face. So damn lovely. Now they've bled together in this beautiful thing. The post-match too, my goodness. The match was just what I wanted out of it, and then you give me THAT as well? Just a beautiful thing, the whole thing. ****1/4
Andrade El Idolo, Isiah Kassidy & Matt Hardy vs. Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara & Sting
Dumb fun. Darby takes punishment in wild fashion, Sammy does some pretty crazy shiet, Andrade throws people onto guardrails, Sting does splashes through tables. It was the kind of an almost-perfect match to be had before the main event. Didn't captivate me too much, but I thought it was pretty good for sure. **1/2
Adam Cole vs. Adam Page
I will say that I am pleasantly surprised that this wasn't the usual overkill Cole main event, but with that being said, it still was very much not for me. It was probably better than I would've imagined, I mean Hangman was really good throughout between his solid selling & usually-always good, hard-hitting offense, but most of it just comes down to me not caring at all about what Cole has to offer. While, as mentioned, I can appreciate the fact that there wasn't as many epic movez sequencez nearfalls as usually in his matches, those were still the meat of the match without a doubt, and it's just not for me. Don't care for the reDRagon interference stuff either obviously, but I did enjoy the finish with Hangman putting a stamp on the thing by using Cole's own move against him before finishing him off w/ a very nice buckshot lariat. I usually really dislike finisher-stealing, because it just feels cheap, but I thought it worked really well here. So yeah: was this better than expected? Yeah absolutely, sure. Good? No, not really. A #VeryOk Main Event. **
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