ORIGINAL (9/20/2020): I’ve been looking for a way into AEW for a while. The overall production reminds me too much of WCW (the somewhat loose feel and the lack of emphasis on entrances to name a couple of characteristics) and I’m old enough to have a deep aversion to that. I also just generally think that a lot of things in this company are kind of dumb. But there’s a lot of talent I like a lot in AEW, including FTR. FTR was amazing in NXT, but almost completely wasted after getting called up. It stands to reason they’d have a lot to prove and show off in AEW. Add that to the fact that I really enjoyed the Young Bucks vs. Kenny Omega & Adam Page match and the emphasis on tag team wrestling in this company, making this seem like as good a place to dive in as any. I’ll be reviewing their journey to the tag titles.
I guess FTR is going to be a CM in CM Punk situation. Like Punk, they’ll tell you it stands for Fear the Revolution, Fuck the Rest, and Follow the Rules and all kinds of other nonsense. But as we all know the CM actually stands for Chick Magnet, we know that FTR stands for Formerly the Revival.
UPDATE (12/20/2021): After revisiting this concept when Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Adam Cole debuted, I decided to integrate FTR into what has become a series. So in this post, I’ve taken the match reviews that were originally here and put them into the first dropdown item and then added categories for FTR’s remaining arcs leading up to All Out, when the ex-WWE fellas debuted.
Road to the Titles June 10, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. The Butcher & The Blade After the match, The Young Bucks came out, mad that FTR didn’t introduce themselves to the self-proclaimed best tag team of the last decade. Matt Jackson’s promos are just so bad. The Butcher and The Blade, Jimmy Havoc (who won’t be a part of this storyline going forward because his garbage private life became public thanks to the Speaking Out movement), and Kip Sabian attacked, but the tag champs Omega & Page made the save. The camera lingered on the awkward standing around for too long before music started to play and relieve some of the non-tension. This badly-paced thing is what I meant when I said earlier that I don’t like WCW presentation. The annoying thing is that NXT has been doing sloppy stuff like this lately too. June 24, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian After the match, Harwood cuts a dope promo calling out all of the tag teams in AEW, especially the Young Bucks. Butcher & Blade distract FTR by getting in the truck that they drove to the ring. Meanwhile, the Lucha Bros get in the ring and the four of them challenge FTR and the Bucks to an eight-man tag. The Lucha Bros beat up FTR, and the Young Bucks run out after the fact for no real reason. This was also executed somewhat awkwardly, but less so than the post-match stuff two weeks earlier. Some of the weirdness could be because the small crowd isn’t reacting to this stuff loudly enough. July 8, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Pentagon Jr, Rey Fenix, The Butcher & The Blade def. Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood, Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson July 15, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler def. Pentagon Jr & Rey Fenix After the match, the Young Bucks sneak up on the Butcher & the Blade and get the keys to the truck back for FTR. Kenny Omega comes out with a cooler full of beer. FTR are happy to have their truck back. But they pour the beer over Omega’s head. The Bucks have to hold back Omega. And that’s it, as always the post-match segment fizzles out rather than ending with a punch. July 28, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Brandon Cutler & Peter Avalon August 4, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Griff Garrison & Brian Pillman Jr. August 5, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Evil Uno, Brodie Lee, Colt Cabana, Five, Nine & Stu Grayson def. Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler, Kenny Omega, Adam Page, Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson The following week at the Tag Team Appreciation Night segment, FTR, the Young Bucks, the Brainbusters, and the Rock n’ Roll Express all gathered in the ring. Things got heated between Arn Andeson and Tully Blanchard, which was enough of a distraction for FTR to attack the Rock n’ Roll Express after Harwood showed that his knee injury was fake. So that’s a heel turn I guess… for reasons? August 22, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler def. Isiah Kassidy & Marq Quen August 27, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler def. Chuck Taylor & Trent, Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson, and Dustin Rhodes & QT Marshall {Number One Contender Gauntlet Match} September 5, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler def. Kenny Omega & Adam Page {AEW Tag Team Championship Match} This was a pretty solid run from debut to champions for FTR. I’m not sure if I’ll keep watching their title reign, as it’s hard for me to care about tag team matches in front of a quiet crowd. But this wasn’t half bad. 
From Dynamite 36. I got a real kick out of Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard watching this match from the stands. Chris Jericho has always had an annoying online persona that made it hard for me to invest in him (much worse now than ever before with his right-leaning politics becoming more public), but I have to admit he’s fun on commentary and I like him advocating for more grounded matches in AEW. So I liked this a lot. The heels looked like tough sons of bitches even while giving up most of the match because the point of this thing was to let FTR show off. And while it’s weird to see FTR as babyfaces, their comebacks were convincing and compelling. The final Shatter Machine (called the Goodnight Express now) was ugly, but then they finished the Blade with a spike piledriver at 10:20, so at least it wasn’t the finish. This was a very good start, and a nice primer to what these fellas will do as good guys. Nothing fancy but everything great, which is what you want from FTR. ***½ 
From Dynamite 38. So Cal Uncensored is replacing QT Marshall & Dustin Rhodes because Marshall had been in contact with someone who had COVID-19, putting him out of action for a while. This is definitely a sign of me getting old, but Kazarian and Wheeler having the same haircut had me confused a couple times during the match. This was very action-packed. SCU got more in here than Butcher & Blade did, and FTR had a harder time with them as a result. Logical and I dig it. FTR won with the Goodnight Express at 12:39. ***½ 
Dynamite: Fyter Fest. The trick to reviewing matches like this, which are really heavy on highspots and less-so on anything else, is to watch it and then sleep on it to see what sticks with you the next day. In the case of this match, it was Matt and Harwood’s awesome cooperation, the Canadian Destroyer onto the group (which only looked a little contrived), and then a lot of the stuff that didn’t work. Pentagon pinned Matt after hitting the LB Driver at 16:27. To be fair, I thought the story of the Young Bucks and FTR starting to come together before the miscommunication caused the bad guys to win was a strong one. It just wasn’t present in enough of the match to make up for the really fake looking spots. The extent to which people overrated this is immense, but that happens a lot with stuff like this. But this was outside of FTR’s wheelhouse, and I’m glad they did what they could to try to bring it down to earth. This isn’t talked about much, but in general Matt is just awful at acting in a way a human being would in any situation, and Nick is just vastly superior to him. ***¼ 
From Dynamite: Fight for the Fallen. The shtick with the truck is getting a little silly now, as the Lucha Bros come to the ring with the Butcher & the Blade in the truck. Jim Ross cuts right through the illogical storyline, wondering why the cops haven’t taken the truck back for FTR since everyone knows where it is since it’s on TV. Taz and Excalibur don’t really have an answer for “I don’t give a shit anymore” JR. Okay, I have to say this: the Lucha Bros have started leaning into their worst impulses. Their stuff here was all flash and slop. That’s not to say they’re bad now because the raw talent is obviously there. But their matches could be so much more interesting if they were as concerned with creating a story as they are with getting in their stuff. I expected a lot more from this. Harwood pulled off Fenix’s mask and got a roll up for the win at 13:25. ***
From Dark 44. It doesn’t get much more squishy than this. Cutler got zero offense in, and Avalon was only on the attack because he lost his temper at one point after FTR became focused on Leva Bates at ringside. What I liked though, was that it didn’t lead to a real comeback by Avalon, and rather Harwood was able to very quickly put him on his back. Moments later, FTR hit a spike piledriver for the win at 7:14. I don’t rate squashes, but this one was effective especially considering it was in an empty arena. N/A
From Dark 45. The commentators used this squash to explain how the tag ropes work and why FTR insisted in their AEW contracts that all their matches required them. Actually, it’s not fair to call this a squash because the Varsity Blondes more than held their own. What I loved about this was that even though FTR was having a hard time, they hit the Goodnight Express absolutely out of nowhere for the win at 6:18. **¼
From Dynamite 44. FTR didn’t wrestle for a couple weeks as they hadn’t been under contract. The week before this, they officially signed so that they could be in contendership for the tag titles and because AEW promised them a tag team appreciation night on August 12. Later that night, FTR saved the Elite from an attack from the Dark Order to set this up. I’m the first person to criticize AEW tag team matches for being over-choreographed, contrived, or sloppy, and I’ve seen many say that the first half of this match was too chaotic. I totally disagree and I think everything worked really well here. In the first half both teams were gelling very well, and that made the quick turnovers feel natural. Plus they were fun as hell. There were enough guys in and around the ring that the constant action made sense. From the moment that Harwood’s knee gave out (and Page and Wheeler took him to the back), the Dark Order took over and dominated. Page coming back after Matt’s killer comeback was dope. There was a long stretch where Omega disappeared from the ring for no reason, but maybe something happened off-camera that I didn’t see. The Elite’s ultimate comeback got overwhelmed and Lee destroyed Page with a lariat for the win at 17:19. That was just plain really great. ****
From Dynamite 46. FTR now has Blanchard in their corner. Private Party kind of reminds me of Ryo Saito & Genki Horiguchi’s team in Dragon Gate. If I were them I’d watch a lot of footage on that team if they haven’t already. The way FTR isolated Quen was cool, though, Kassidy’s comeback was hampered a bit by FTR looking like dopes who just took it and even ran into it on purpose. That’s the one part of FTR’s game that doesn’t look believable. Blanchard pulled Wheeler out of the way of Kassidy’s dive once, so the commentators hammered home that he was a major difference maker. Sure, why not? Quen fell to the Goodnight Express at 12:52. In the locker room later on, FTR said they’d win a gauntlet match the following Wednesday to earn a tag title shot at the upcoming PPV. Adam Page walked in to ask them why they’ve been asking like such jerks. FTR said they felt disrespected by the RnR Express and that Harwood faked his knee injury to see who he could trust. Page went with him to the back, so he trusts Page now. He sows the seeds of discord between Page and the Young Bucks, and tells Page that he should be rooting for FTR in the gauntlet. Harwood is a good promo, and that was a very succinct way to get closure on annoying hanging threads from recent weeks. ***
From Dynamite 47. Let’s pretend for the sake of my sanity in this one instance for this particular review that a gauntlet match isn’t many short matches but rather just one. Chris Jericho gets an entrance while joining commentary, whereas the competitors did not. Jericho remarks on fans being back in attendance and says masks are encouraged. Pretty sure they’re super required, Chris. Stop bringing your shit politics into things. The Young Bucks and the Natural Nightmare started the match because they were ranked last three and four. That’s cool. The crowd didn’t buy for a second that the Nightmares could win, so they were silent right through the Bucks hitting a BTE Trigger to eliminate them. The Best Friends came in next, and things picked up a bit. I was wondering up to that point what the point of having 500 fans in attendance was if you weren’t going to be hearing them at all. Well, you could hear them some here. Jericho starts to win me over a bit by saying he’ll never do Being the Elite and that he hates it. Well, yeah it’s bad. It’s bad comedy. Bad, bad comedy. This segment peaked when it started, downshifted, and then just stayed in second. Adam Page came out and distracted the Bucks so that Trent could roll up Matt. So FTR’s plan is working. Having the Friends beat the Bucks was a smart move, because the Bucks vs. FTR for the tag titles is the big match you want to build to. The first couple minutes of FTR vs. Best Friends is gobbled up by commercials. Harwood tapped Taylor with a heel hook to end the whole thing at 21:32. This was long, heatless, and boring. The only compelling part was Page’s involvement. There was no excuse for this to be this bad. *¾ 
From the second All Out. In a neat detail that I hadn’t noticed before Excalibur said it on commentary, the tag ropes are back and it’s because FTR demanded it in their contract negotiations. Jim Ross had said in an interview that he was mad that AEW had done away with tag ropes because some people (unnamed but probably the Young Bucks) didn’t think they were cool. But they are cool. This was quite good, showing FTR as the better tag team but the champs as more talented individually. But the champs were’t on the same page thanks to Page’s wishy washy allegiances and insecurities. This was long, but didn’t feel long. I have no doubt I would have liked it more had there been a normal crowd or sound sweetening, because tag team matches in front of quiet, spread out fans just doesn’t work that well. FTR won with two spike piledrivers on Page at 29:37. The second piledriver was really awkward and I wonder if either a) this was supposed to end with the first one or b) they just didn’t execute the second one all that well. There’s nowhere else in the States giving us thirty-minute tag team matches. I appreciate AEW for providing that. ***¾
Tag Team Champions September 16, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler def. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus September 30, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky {AEW World Tag Team Championship Match} October 7, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Jack Evans & Angelico {AEW World Tag Team Championship Match} October 14, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler def. Trent & Chuck Taylor {AEW World Tag Team Championship Match} November 7, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson def. Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler {AEW World Tag Team Championship Match}
From Dynamite 50. The Young Bucks came out before the match and attacked the original referee, and then walked away. Okay then. I find the Jurassic Express tag team a little frustrated. While it was done wonders for Jungle Boy, highlighting him as capable and exciting, I think it has almost completely failed to do the same for Luchasaurus. He’s a really big guy with an interesting look, but he always looks less competent than Jungle Boy when it comes to getting the winning edge in matches. This match is no different, as the Jurassic Express’s comebacks saw Jungle Boy getting near fall after near fall, while Luchasaurus got in a few strikes or throws but never got close to winning the match. I’ve noticed this is the case in a lot of the team’s matches. There isn’t really a reason why Luchasaurus has to just be an accessory to Jungle Boy’s ascent, but that’s what I see has happened. Anyway, thanks go Jungle Boy (of course), this match was more exciting than your average tag match. Harwood cut back on a sunset flip and got a leverage assist from Wheeler to get the winning pin at 12:14. ***¼
From Dynamite 52. I watched this match long after it aired on TNT, so it wasn’t on the TNT app. As such, I found it elsewhere online and the version that I found was commercial free. But of course, nothing interesting happened during what would have been the break. This match was called a Brush with Greatness because FTR had the time limit shortened from 60 minutes to 20 minutes. It was a lot of fun. There was great tandem offense from both teams, with SCU bringing more high impact stuff to the table while FTR was more calculated. Sky almost got the win for his team with a series of quick near falls. But Blanchard pulled on his leg during a suplex and held it down with Harwood’s help, giving Wheeler the win at 15:39. ***½
From Dynamite: Chris Jericho’s 30th Anniversary Celebration. This is another Brush with Greatness match. It doesn’t make much sense given that Evans & Angelico are high flyers and not conditioned to wrestle long matches anyway. This was another international, commercial-free feed and they actually kept things entertaining through the break by finding creative ways to abuse Evans’ knees. Unfortunately, this match suffered from a bad case of airing live. Around this time, Dynamite was sometimes aired on tape delay, which gave them the opportunity to pipe in crowd noise. But when they were live they didn’t do that, so the empty arena felt especially hollow. That said, I had a lot of fun watching the Hybrid2 frustrate FTR with their flips and dives, only for the champs to figure out the solution and obliterate their opponents. Evans got a little sloppy near the end, but it did nothing to derail the match. FTR hit a Superplex/Superfly Splash combo for the win at 13:38. ***¼
From Dynamite Anniversary. It seems based on a match graphic I found from the week before this took place that it was originally a Brush with Greatness match. But it’s announced as having a 60-minute time limit. I hated this match. That’s not fair, I hated the last few minutes of this match. But as we all know, the end is more important than the beginning. Most of the match was fine, just fine, but then they got into some really dumb crap. It started with Trent being whipped into Kip Sabian’s arcade machine on the floor. That in and of itself is net neutral, but then the camera focused on Sabian sending Penelope to the back for some reason. Back in the ring, Trent’s leg was out of commission so Taylor came in with offense that was very unconvincing. Then, Wheeler grabbed a title belt. Why? They weren’t in danger of losing at this point. He took a swing with it, causing the referee to duck. That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in a wrestling match. For one thing, the referee was not near the swing. For another, it’s the ref’s job to keep his eye on the action, not cower in fear. And while he was cowering, Wheeler hit Taylor with the belt for the win at 16:33. I hated it. This should not have come to be. *¾
From the second Full Gear. The Young Bucks said they’d never challenge for the tag titles again if they lost. That telegraphed them winning, as the Jacksons never being AEW Tag Team Champions was just not in the cards. It doesn’t matter that Cody Rhodes did the same thing with the AEW World Championship; Rhodes isn’t to the main event single scene what the Bucks are to the tag scene. Hell, he isn’t to the single scene what half the roster is to the single scene. Matt came into this with a bum knee, so I expected that to be a major focal point. Blanchard is barred from ringside. The video package before the match was good because it established the Jacksons as the babyfaces despite them acting like heels at times in the crappy build for this thing. The first half of this match was terrific. Both teams went after each other with wild tenacity. The Bucks focused on injuring Harwood’s hand, while FTR did the same to Matt’s knee. FTR did dastardly things like attack Nick on the apron and bait him out of the corner so that he could be knocked off to the floor. I love stuff tag team matches because they give wrestlers the opportunity to do uncommon things like that with the formula. I was worried about the second half because I knew ahead of time that this match was notorious for all of the classic tag team finishers that were used in it. FTR started that off with the Hart Attack and the Steiner Brothers’ Doomsday Bulldog. Neither was distracting. The Young Bucks responded with the 3D, which was integrated well. But then they immediately followed that with the Twist of Fate/Swanton Bomb combo. So at that point I was distracted. It seemed like they were begging off from the tributes when FTR hit DIY’s finisher. Honestly, had it not been for the Hardy Boyz bit I wouldn’t have been annoyed by the Meeting in the Middle. DIY was actually a rival of FTR when they were both in NXT, after all. Thankfully, they ditched that noise for the final stretch of the match and focused back on the respective injuries and on Matt’s frustration in general. And also thankfully, the match culminated with Matt hitting a barefoot superkick with his bad leg on Wheeler to win the titles at 28:46, giving the more interesting bits of the match some closure. This was an excellent match that could have been even better if they’d reigned in the silliness. I’m not even saying they’d have to eliminate all the tributes. But maybe three of them instead of five, and maybe spread them out a little so they felt more natural. Anyway, I’m officially looking forward to an eventual rematch. ****½
In the Jungle December 9, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Brian Pillman Jr. & Griff Garrison January 13, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt January 27, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Jungle Boy def. Dax Harwood February 17, 2020 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Matt Sydal & Mike Sydal March 3, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood & Tully Blanchard def. Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus & Marko Stunt The following weekend, MJF and Chris Jericho lost a tag title match to the Young Bucks. Then, Sammy Guevara exposed that MJF had tried to lead a coup and turn the Inner Circle against Jericho. They sided with Jericho, but MJF then revealed that it didn’t matter because he’d formed his own faction. The Pinnacle included Wardlow, Spears, and FTR. 
From Dynamite 62. A month is a hell of a cool-down period for FTR. Garrison got a fun comeback for about thirty seconds near the end of the match, but the majority of this thing was FTR picking apart Pillman. I have no issue with that. Based on the past and the future between these teams, it seems like the Varsity Blondes had been assigned to FTR reheat duty. FTR hit Pillman with the Goodnight Express for the win at 8:24. **
From Dynamite New Year’s Smash, Part 2. This comes after another month off for FTR. I listened to Jim Cornette rant about this match before watching it, which was probably dumb and indicative of my self destructive behavior. I think it’s fair to say that FTR shouldn’t really be selling for Stunt, but to say they’re more devalued in AEW than when they were shaving each other’s backs in WWE is pretty weird. All that said, with the exception of one Ace Crusher, FTR only sold for Stunt when Jungle Boy was helping him. Also, Stunt got taken out by Blanchard. I dunno, it didn’t seem that egregious, and FTR won in a pretty dominant fashion. They hit Stunt with the Big Rig (a renamed Goodnight Express in memory of Brodie Lee) for the win at 10:18 (shown of 12:10). For Cornette to say that this match buried FTR when they’d taken weeks and weeks off between matches before this is pretty odd. But then, he’s odd. **½
From Dynamite 69. Blanchard & Wheeler were handcuffed to Luchasaurus for this match. Jungle Boy’s promo skills were exposed as quite weak in the pre-match video. This match was fun, but I found watching the seconds struggle at ringside was more distracting than it was a boon to the match. Jungle Boy and Harwood are both good, and it would have been fine to just focus the production on what was happening in the ring. Jungle Boy locked in the Snare Trap for the win at 14:56. As soon as they’re released, Wheeler & Blanchard attack Luchasaurus and then Jungle Boy. ***
From Dynamite 72. I was surprised how much offense the Sydals got in this match. First off, their gear is awesome. I don’t know why but teal, pink, and black just works for me. The commentators spend much of the match putting over FTR, but the Sydals controlled almost all of it with their spinny kicks and spinny dives. I’m not mad at any of that. I could have done without the tag rules being thrown out near the end, and Mike looked like he almost killed Wheeler with a misplaced dive. Seconds later, FTR hit him with the Big Rig for the win at 8:56. After the match, FTR tries to cut the Sydals’ hair, but the Jurassic Express makes the save. **½
From Dynamite: The Crossroads. FTR came out wearing the NWA Tag Team Championship belts, and Blanchard has his own NWA United States Championship belt on. Weird for Dax & Cash to wear belts that they didn’t win. They also have JJ Dillon in their corner. That’s neat. This match was fine, but not great by any stretch. It featured contrived moments from FTR, which was surprising. On the other hand, Blanchard was used well, getting a big pop for hitting Stunt with the Slingshot Suplex and taking a spin kick from Luchasaurus. In the end, a mystery man attacked Luchasaurus which allowed FTR and Blanchard to hit a spike piledriver for the win at 11:19. After the match, the masked man was revealed to be Spears. **¾
The Pinnacle vs. The Inner Circle March 24, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood & Shawn Spears def. Brian Pillman Jr. Griff Garrison & Dante Martin April 12, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler def. Jay Lyon & Midas Black April 14, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Chris Jericho def. Dax Harwood May 3, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler def Terrell Hughes & Terrence Hughes May 5, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood, MJF, Wardlow & Shawn Spears def. Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, Ortiz, Santana & Sammy Guevara {Blood & Guts} As for this match, while it was a more successful throwback to the War Games matches of old than most of the NXT matches, it suffered from the same drawbacks as those old matches. When the babyfaces were in control, they mostly just paced around the ring while the heels bled on the mat. That’s not interesting. When the heels were in control, the match had tension and was much more exciting. Part of that is because the Pinnacle are more interesting personas than the Inner Circle. The most compelling parts of the match were when they deviated from the ‘80s formula (except for when Guevara botched a dive), making memorable spots stand out like Wardlow and Hager destroying the smaller guys on the opposing teams before going after each other, and like Santana & Ortiz facilitating a double spike piledriver on FTR. But most of the All Out Assault portion was dominated by Jericho and his friends standing around and not actually trying to get anyone from the Pinnacle to surrender. It got rather boring. And then, Blanchard took out a referee and opened the cage, allowing MJF and Jericho to climb to the roof. So they couldn’t even stay on brand. They traded submissions on the top of the cage but neither guy quit. Meanwhile, nobody from either team thought to go up top and help? MJF hit Jericho with the Dynamite Diamond Ring and threatened to throw him off of the cage unless someone from the Inner Circle surrendered. So Guevara surrendered. And then MJF shoved Jericho off of the cage anyway, onto the fakest looking steel panels you’ll ever see, which were covering crash pads. Somehow, Jericho got injured by this anyway. So not only did it look stupid, but it wasn’t safe. Worst of both worlds. That kind of sums up this match too, as they pulled the most boring aspects of the original War Games match and then ended it with a kooky, WWE-style ending. I’ll acknowledge the hard work from many involved, but this wasn’t it. *** May 30, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, Ortiz, Santana & Sammy Guevara def. Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood, MJF, Wardlow & Shawn Spears {Stadium Stampede Match} I got pretty bored watching this mostly because any time we’d get close to something resembling momentum in a given segment, they’d have to move on to the next segment featuring different wrestlers. The whole thing turns into the viewer just waiting for everyone to gather together in one area because you know the match won’t end before that. And while some of the action is fun, it’s never entertaining or creative enough to be memorable. Eventually, Jericho and MJF end up in front of the live crowd in Daily’s Place, which I believe was the first time the building was filled to capacity since the pandemic. They fight in the stands. Then, Guevara and Spears find their way to the ring where Guevera hits a 630 senton for the win at 32:26. So what happened to the tag teams, Wardlow and Hager? This was a pretty huge mess that only distinguished itself from the dual-gender Money in the Bank “cinematic” match by virtue of being slightly more focused. I imagine there was some sort of story reason for Guevara to win it for his team, so that’s fine, but Jericho hitting MJF with a powerbomb onto a table isn’t the most climactic way to end that feud if it’s not the finish of the match. ** June 21, 2021 – Jacksonville, Florida Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs July 7, 2021 – Miami, Florida Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood & Wardlow def. Jake Hager, Ortiz & Santana July 28, 2021 – Charlotte, North Carolina Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood def. Ortiz & Santana September 1, 2021 – Hoffman Estates, Illinois Ortiz & Santana def. Cash Wheeler & Dash Harwood 
From Dynamite 77. Literally half of this match happened during the commercial break because the match only served as a precursor to an MJF promo. And the portion of the match that happened in picture-in-picture during the break was Martin’s flippy showcase. So nothing exciting happened during the three minutes of full screen action. Spears hit Martin with a Death Valley Driver for the win at 6:24. After the match, MJF promises the rest of this team title opportunities. That wouldn’t come true for FTR for quite a while. *½
From Dark Elevation 5. Lyon & Black are very goofy looking. Lyon’s mask got knocked off immediately. Eye roll. How bad are you at being a masked wrestler that your mask falls off on the first night that you’re getting a look from the second biggest wrestling company in the United States. Black was only in the ring for a minute before he got caught with the spike piledriver at 4:24. Total squash. N/A
From Dynamite 80. Mike Tyson was the special ring enforcer for this match. Why would you bring Tyson in for a match in the middle of the show where your former champion faces a former tag team champion? I don’t know. Wrestling does random celebrity crap too much. This was actually a decent brawl before the match started having to serve the overbooking. Things started going south when Jericho put Harwood in the Liontamer and then walked him over to the corner that Wheeler was standing in so that Wheeler could punch him. I know Jericho is an meandering oaf, but that looked stupid even for him. And then both factions started brawling around the ring, Sammy Guevara distracted Harwood and Jericho hit the Judas Effect for the win at 13:21. Tyson had punched Wheeler a few minutes earlier, earning his paycheck for the night. I don’t think we were robbed of a great match, but we were robbed of a decent one. **½
From Dark: Elevation 8. The Hughes brothers are D-Von Dudley’s kids. But this is Dark: Elevation, so we didn’t get to see anything from them. What we did see was FTR winning another squash and continuing to pad their stats. They hit one of the Hugheses with the spike piledriver at 4:58. Dark and Elevation are good places for people to pad their stats, but why have the Hughes Bros show up and not give them any offense at all? What do you learn about them in that scenario? Maybe this was just a favor to D-von. N/A
From Dynamite: Blood & Guts. This is using all of the original War Games match rules. The Match Beyond is now called All Out Assault. I wish AEW would either call the match All Out Assault or the Match Beyond. Blood & Guts is dumb. Speaking of All Out Assault, they didn’t ring the opening bell until that portion of the match began, so the official match time is 17:00. I hate that, so for what it’s worth I consider this match to be 32:54 long. Just because you can’t win the match before that portion, doesn’t mean the match hasn’t begun. You can’t win the Royal Rumble until the 30th man has entered, but that doesn’t mean the match didn’t start when the 30th man entered. You can’t win a standard match on the floor, but that doesn’t mean the match time pauses on the floor. Ridiculous. I kind of remember WCW speaking this way about the match, and have one vague, hazy memory of perhaps Mauro Ranallo doing the same in NXT. All of that is dumb. 
From Double or Nothing. Can’t have Jericho’s team lose the feud! If the Inner Circle lost they would have to disband, removing the question of who would win this match. I think bringing back this match as an annual Double or Nothing tradition is a mistake. I get that people liked the first one, but it’s a silly gimmick and feels very anticlimactic after Blood & Guts. Right off the bat, Tony Schiavone asks if the Inner Circle repelling into the stadium from the roof is the most dramatic entrance they’ve ever seen. He suggests they look like Seal Team 5, when they actually swing more like a Barrel of Monkeys toy. And then, the Pinnacle arrives in a different vehicle than the one we were made to think they were in originally. But it provides them no tactical advantage. In fact, it puts them at a disadvantage because MJF had to hide to sell the ruse. Not a good start. Given that the match is falls count anywhere, the ring in the middle of the stadium looks incredibly goofy. I did like the various action set pieces we saw between the various pairings, but are we to assume that these things are happening simultaneously or one after another? If it’s the latter, what’s happening in the interim to the folks who aren’t on screen? And if it’s the former, how are we supposed to internalize the commentators being in four places at once? Konnan showing up to DJ the music during the FTR vs. Santana & Ortiz segment was cute. 
From Dark: Elevation 15. This was very fun for a Dark match. Isaacs and Nelson got a lot of offense and looked good as a team. They kind of dominated this match, but it worked because Harwood was able to shut everything down in an instant and win with a reverse Figure 4 Leglock out of nowhere at 5:23. I would not mind seeing more of Nelson & Isaacs at all. **¾
From Dynamite Road Rager. Why did FTR take yet another month off (one episode of Elevation aside) after Stadium Stampede? This was the first AEW show outside of Daily’s Place in forever. This was pretty dope. It was cool to see a six-man tag in AEW that was fast-paced but didn’t suffer from everyone being in the ring all the time so that they could hit their flips and dives to the floor. The heels were dastardly and the babyfaces were tough, and everyone fought hard. FTR snuck in and hit Hager with the Big Rig, which gave Wardlow the pin at 8:56. ***
From Dynamite: Fight for the Fallen. Konnan is back in Santana & Ortiz’s corner. Hey, you know what I like? A tag team feud that isn’t over the tag titles. Between the previous match, this, and the match they had shortly after this, I’m pleased as punch. These four guys put on a great, high-impact and rapid-paced match. Wheeler gruesomely injured his arm from a fall onto the post, and the match ended rather abruptly after that when Harwood hit Ortiz with a brainbuster for the win at 11:09. The finish felt stapled on, so it’s a good thing they had a chance at a do-over in a few weeks. ***¼ 
From Dynamite 100. After yet another full month off for FTR, they settle the score with Santana & Ortiz here. This time, it’s safe to assume that Wheeler had to heal up after the last match. They hyped this as potentially being FTR’s final match, pending Wheeler’s healing progress. Santana & Ortiz have their Dead Presidents makeup on, while FTR are wearing tights in memory of the recently departed Bobby Eaton. This match was excellent, technically. The action was a blast and they had the crowd eating out of the palm of their hands. But I bumped up against it because it was structured in a weird way given the story. Wheeler was coming back from a gnarly injury, but he was on the heel team. I found myself pulling for him to win, but the match didn’t make him a de facto babyface. Now granted, this is the result of an unfortunate circumstance, and I know you want your babyfaces to win at the end of feuds where possible. But since this match, Santana & Ortiz have been relegated to the YouTube shows with the exception of a brief stint helping their stablemates fight a bunch of MMA guys and their coach on PPV. They haven’t gone near the tag belts. In the meantime, FTR have actually gone after the tag titles and won the AAA tag titles. So this result showed a stark lack of foresight. FTR is handed their second tag team loss in AEW, and for what? The match ended at 13:34 when Santana & Ortiz hit Wheeler with a double reverse suplex. ***½
FTR did not wrestle four days later at All Out, where Punk wrestled for the first time in AEW and where Danielson and Cole debuted. But this is a close enough endpoint and from here on out you can continue to see FTR’s journey through the rest of my Some Elite Wrestling series.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
