AEW Double or Nothing 2024

 

AEW DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2019

Roderick Strong vs. Will Ospreay
The first Will Ospreay singles match I saw was versus Roderick Strong, and it's still one of my favorite Ospreay matches ever. This one was not quite as great, but it was still very good. Roddy does some very fun work controlling things with his always great looking offense, and having Ospreay (truly) fight from underneath hides a lot of things that I do not like about his wrestling, so this was a very nice opener all around. Obviously didn't care about the Kingdom stuff, but thankfully that was kept to the minimum. ***1/4

Jon Moxley vs. Konosuke Takeshita
A pretty good, physical match-up here, yet I echo everyone who thinks it was booked questionably. Takeshita dominates most of the match, and looks good doing it with Moxley's selling also being solid, but the finish sucks the energy out of the thing. **3/4

Mercedes Mone vs. Willow Nightingale
This was my first time seeing Willow Nightingale & she impressed with her performance. Some really good, fun power moves in her arsenal. Mercedes was good as always. Great bumping & the overall dynamic of her all around in-ring smarts vs. that referenced power-game of Willow - it was quite nice. A very good match. ***1/4

Swerve Strickland vs. Christian Cage
This was an alright match. Always enjoy watching Christian do his thing - he's a wonderful, savvy slimebag. Swerve's work usually leaves me cold, and such was the case for most of the match here - other than the pretty cool finishing sequence, I really didn't care for his offense here. **

Anarchy In The Arena III
For the 3rd year in a row, Anarchy In The Arena delivers a wonderful, violent spectacle. So much fun from start to finish with beautiful amount of violence & great moments. ****

2024 MOTYC (****+) LIST

★★★★★

★★★★¾

 Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW 01/04)
Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW 02/11)

 ★★★★½

 

★★★★¼

Blue Panther vs. Bryan Danielson (CMLL 04/05)

★★★★

Hook vs. Samoa Joe (AEW 01/17)

Bryan Danielson vs. Shane Taylor (AEW 03/09)
Bryan Danielson vs. Katsuyori Shibata (AEW 03/16)
Blue Panther, Mistico, Ultimo Guerrero & Volador Jr. vs. Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Moxley & Matt Sydal (CMLL 03/29)

Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns (WWE 04/07)

Chuck Taylor vs. Trent Beretta (AEW 04/27)

Anarchy In The Arena (AEW 05/26)

WM40 NIGHT 2

 

WWE WRESTLEMANIA 40 - NIGHT 2

Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre
They kept this pretty fast & really furious with big moves galore from the very beginning. It's a pace that suits both guys, and they referenced Rollins being banged up from the night before pretty nicely throughout. It's a solid match. I do think they definitely went overboard with all the signature move kickouts though, and ultimately it's something that takes a bit away from the match for me, buuut it was still an extremely solid opener. **3/4

Bobby Lashley & The Street Profits vs. The Final Testament
This was kind of a heatless mess before Bubba got involved. After he got pulled into the action, the match hit some good notes with a couple of awesome spots, but ultimately this was a very forgettable, yet harmless match. Gentleman's **

AJ Styles vs. LA Knight
This was good fun! Knight delivered as the fired up babyface & AJ delivered one of his better WrestleMania performances (& matches). Traditional dynamic fit for the simple story they have told in their feud. Really good midcard Mania match. ***

Logan Paul vs. Kevin Owens vs. Randy Orton
A banger. I enjoyed this all the way through - the comedy stuff hit with the Orton & KO alliance, and once that alliance broke, the action was ideal 3-way dance stuff with a fast pace & awesome spots/moments. ***1/2

IYO SKY vs. Bayley
Iyo is just incredible. The way she makes every bump she takes look brutal as hell, her eloquent athleticism, her amazing offense. What a wrestler. This was a good match. I didn't think it was quite as epic as it could've been & I would've liked to see them explore the Bayley's knee-story a lot more than they ended up doing. Amazing performance by Iyo though, as mentioned. I don't want to call this a carryjob by any means, but when I think about what made this match so enjoyable for me, it's all about Iyo Sky and what she delivered in every department. ***1/4

Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes
This was a beautiful WrestleMania main event. Their match from the year before was already really good, but with an awful finish, and here the meat of the match was arguably even better plus you got the perfect finish. All the run-ins were amazing & so was the finish. Such a great big time main event. ****

WM40 NIGHT 1

WWE WRESTLEMANIA 40 - NIGHT 1

Rhea Ripley vs. Becky Lynch
This was a good opener. Both Rhea & Becky busted out some pretty cool big match offense and wrestled a very physical back & forth match. Good selling, fun arsenals showcased by both. A good match. ***

The Judgment Day vs. #DIY vs. Awesome Truth vs. New Catch Republic vs. Austin Theory & Grayson Waller vs. The New Day
This was a fun car-crash multi-man ladder match. Didn't overstay its welcome & featured neat spots throughout. Kind of exactly what it needed to be. ***1/4

Andrade & Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio & Santos Escobar
This was a solid little midcard number. Action packed from start to finish. Certainly nothing memorable in any way, but a pretty good one. **3/4

Jey Uso vs. Jimmy Uso
I don't think this was as awful as most of the people seem to be calling it, but it definitely ended up being a bit ridiculous. At first I thought they were actually having a solid little match, but then they upped the melodrama to almost-overkill levels. *3/4

Damage CTRL vs. Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill & Naomi
This was awesome! Textbook tag action with the entire match being great build to the eventual tag to Jade. Damage Ctrl did awesome work throughout controlling things, that said eventual tag to Jade was pretty good & Bianca was an absolute beast overall. She casually reminded everyone that she has one of the deepest, best bags in the entire women's division. ***1/4

Gunther vs. Sami Zayn
I wasn't really feeling this until the moment Zayn kicked out from the 2 powerbombs. After that, the match reaches a beautiful apex with Gunther's beatdown being wonderful, Sami's selling being equally wonderful & the drama just hitting all the right levels. BRAINBUSTAAHH was a cool as hell moment as well & a fitting ending to Gunther's reign. ***1/2

Cody Rhodes & Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns & The Rock
This definitely showed its runtime in some periods of the match, as I found myself bored & not interested in the thing, but all in all I thought this was a pretty good main event. Some really good moments & the last 10 minutes or so were especially quite good. **3/4

WRESTLE KINGDOM 18

 

NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 18 IN TOKYO DOME


Bullet Club War Dogs vs. Catch 22
TJP's entrance attire was really goddamn cool. I'm not very familiar at all with the WAR DOGS-duo going into this match, and I feel like I'm not very familiar with them coming out of the match. It was a very "nothing-saying" match, which has been the case for maany jr. heavy tags when it comes to their Tokyo Dome outings. It did it's job though as the fast-paced opener to get the crowd going & didn't overstay it's welcome. *3/4

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
A pretty charming little number. Zack is a great opponent for Tanahashi at this stage of his career, because Zack can just do his thing around him & even with Tana past his prime n' broken down, he still compliments ZSJ's style nicely. This wasn't epic or very memorable by any means - in a very blunt description I would call it a touring house show version of the very best Tanahashi vs. Sabre Jr. matches, but it's still a solid time. **3/4

Yota Tsuji vs. Yuya Uemura
Now this was an awesome mid-card Tokyo Dome banger! Two young hungry guys going there & showing what they got with 10 minutes or so. Yota showed great personality in everything he did - all of his big moves hit with this great sense of swagger to 'em. Yuya's fieriness shone through as well, making this a really good showing for both. ***1/4

David Finlay vs. Jon Moxley vs. Will Ospreay
This was what it needed to be. A fast moving, action packed, exciting three way dance. Ospreay excels in matches like this, Moxley can do anything & Finlay found his role quite well in this dynamic. It's not exactly my type of a match, but I did find it consistently good. The 20+ minutes flew by, really. ***

Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada
This was beautiful. Bryan is out for revenge after he broke his arm in their first meeting, and the agenda is clear. He wants an eye for an eye. He goes after Okada's arm ruthlessly in the most vicious ways you could imagine; he stretches it with violent intentions, he kicks the shit out of it (his kicks seriously looked more vicious than usual), slams it around. It's the American Dragon special & he is doing it to the face of the company at their biggest show of the year. Saying it's a beautiful sight would be an understatement. When I was an angry teenager my big complaint about big Okada matches was that it always felt like the work before the finishing stretch felt like hollow filler, but here the work before the (excellent btw) finishing stretch was my favorite wrestler of all-time punishing the shit out of him while Okada himself delivers one of his finest selling performances? I mean come on. The post-match was absolutely amazing too. Felt big just like the match did. There is nothing like a classic match at the Tokyo Dome, and The Rainmaker vs. The American Dragon was a classic at the Tokyo Dome. ****3/4