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Top 10 AEW Matches from 2019

January 4, 2020 | Posted by TJ Hawke
Dustin Rhodes Cody AEW Double or Nothing Image Credit: AEW

10. Adam Page vs. Sammy Guevara – 10/30

Sammy was being a douche. Adam Page was trying to take his head off. It was an easy dynamic. The rabid crowd completely bought into it, and the wrestlers provided a compact battle with plenty of fun action to capitalize on the environment.

Page then won with the lariat and called his shot to defeat Pac with the lariat at the PPV. This was good, and it was the first time in a long time that Page looked like the hot prospect wrestler AEW has tried to present him as being. (***1/4)

 

9. Best Friends vs. SCU – 10/16

This was a first round match in the tournament for the AEW Tag Team Championship.

While the match petered off in the second half and had a botched finish, this was much better than expected. The source behind the goodness was that actual thought was put into it.

SCU were jumped by Pentagon and Fenix before the match with their goal clearly being to eliminate a potential opponent. Scorpio Sky made the save. Daniels was supposed to be in the match, but Rick Knox allowed Sky to replace the newly injured Daniels.

The match was on, and everything was instantly heated up because of that pre-match angle. Then the teams worked a super competitive match that logically flowed based on the conditions. Best Friends were finely tuned and running through SCU who were still recovering.

SCU made a desperate comeback and managed to use dives to even things back up. The match also had a surprising emotional hook in a half-dressed Scorpio Sky frantically running around with no shoes. Who would have guessed!

Things from there oddly slowed down, and then SCU botched their finish but those merely caused the match to be good not great. (***1/4)

 

8. Cima vs. Darby Allin – 10/2

This was pretty much exactly what it should have been. Cima jumped Darby to jumpstart the match. Darby didn’t take it lying down though and responded with three consecutive tope suicidas.

Then the match became built around a really simple story. Darby really wanted to connect on the Coffin Drop. Cima knew that was bad news and prevented it from happening twice. Darby finally did managed to hit it clean though and that got him the win.

Cima needs to be the AEW Television Champion and do one million matches like this. (***1/4)

 

7. Chris Jericho vs. Darby Allin – 10/16

This was a Philadelphia street fight for THE PAINMAKER’S AEW Heavyweight Championship.

The only thing that needs to be known about this match was that it was essentially constructed to build up Darby Allin as a legitimate main eventer. He not only worked a very competitive match with the #1 pushed guy in the company, but he literally did it with his hands tied behind his back for a significant portion of the contest. Then the only thing that could really keep him down was interference from Jack Swagger. Fun match. Good elevation of Darby. Darby and Jack at Full Gear will be great. Let’s goooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. (***1/2)

 

6. Best Friends vs. Private Party vs. SCU – 6/29

They basically decided to do a main event triple threat tag in this pre-show opener spot. That may seem questionable on paper, but it led to an incredibly over match here that absolutely solidified Private Party as stars in the promotion. Best Friends pinning them to win also provides a lot of potentially interesting paths for the teams to go in. Big thumbs up for this. (***3/4)

 

5. Nyla Rose vs. Riho vs. Yuka Sakazaki – 6/29

This was really well done. Sakazaki and Riho did a great job of flying all over the place to both make Rosa look strong while also conveying a sense of desperation. The closing sequence was particularly exciting and ensured that the match ended on a high note. They pulled out a lot of cool spots that made everyone look great. Riho pulling off the miracle win on Rose really sets things up for all three wrestlers to do interesting things going forward. (***3/4)

 

4. Jon Moxley & Pac vs. Kenny Omega & Adam Page – 10/16

This was an excellent display of how to deliver a satisfying match that had a storyline finish.

The match worked well because everyone was moving like they were trying to win. Sure, there was nothing really on the line, but pride was enough to make these guys competitive. Moxley and Pac were united in their goal to establish themselves, and they showed how well as a team they could work.

As the match was devolving down the stretch, Omega and Moxley took their eye off the ball and were getting reading to turn this into a weapons brawl. Pac was incensed at Moxley’s selfishness. It was a natural conflict between the characters.

Moxley wants to prove himself, but he is equally invested in proving a point to Omega. Pac is an indignant elf who is not getting the matches he deserves despite his big victories. Moxley realized the match was not worth the trouble took out Pac with a double arm DDT. Omega and Page then easily finished Pac off.

Pac vs. Moxley was then announced for next week. This is how you do it. (***3/4)

 

3. The Young Bucks vs. Private Party – 10/9

This was a first round match in the tournament for the AEW Tag Team Championship.

This was put together exactly as it should have been. Private Party came out hot. They did wild dives. It was great. The Bucks cut them off. Private Party managed to start making a desperate comeback.

The Bucks were on the metaphorical ropes, but they managed to hang on to set up for the first Meltzer Driver on TNT. Private Party avoided it though and stole the match with a victory roll. Excellent match. Private Party are probably going to be HUGE in AEW. (****)

 

2. Cody Rhodes vs. Dustin Rhodes – 5/25

In 2013, Cody Rhodes went on his honeymoon. The Raw writing team freaked out about it for some reason, because they did not know it was happening. They decided they had to WRITE OUT Cody for two weeks as if continuity in WWE matters in any way. It accidentally led to Dustin Rhodes’ 300th run with the company, and it somehow started a chain reaction of events that led us to Double or Nothing.

The Rhodes Family vs. The Authority et al was the best story in modern WWE history, and it was essentially all due to Dustin Rhodes and Cody Rhodes coming together to make one hell of a tag team. It was the first time that Cody had done anything truly meaningful in professional wrestling. It was the first time he was a part of something Actually Good.

It was the WWE though, and that means that it had to end terribly, slowly, painfully, and in the least satisfying way possible. While playing armchair therapist is stupid, there really is no doubt in my mind that if Cody never got to be a part of this experience of discovering how emotionally satisfying wrestling *could* be, then he never would have left WWE and looked to create something better.

Jump forward in time, and Cody Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes finally get to have the contest they wanted years ago. While Cody talks in the video package about how the match is about the new wrestling generation taking on the old generation and that it is *NOT* about brother vs. brother, that is obviously full of crap. This match was about a brother vs. a brother, and that is the most interesting lense in which to view the contest.

This match was about the undeserving prince of professional wrestling doing such a good parody of Triple H that the fans don’t even recognize that it’s happening. This match was about one of the most naturally gifted professional wrestlers who pretty much defines the idea that the best wrestlers just “get it.” This match was about Cody Rhodes being all smokes and mirrors while his older brother Dustin had to do all the substantive work to actually make the match work.

And that’s okay!!! That’s what professional wrestling is supposed to do!! Take whatever you’ve got and do whatever you have to do to make it work. That mentality was the genesis of Cody’s first and only real artistic success in the WWE, and it is the type of mentality that will be required to keep Cody doing good work going forward.

It was fitting then that Cody ended the post-match segment by announcing that Cody’s next match in AEW will be Cody teaming up with Dustin vs. The Young Bucks. As long as Cody is tied to his infinitely better older brother, there’s gonna be a chance he does something memorably good. (****)

 

1. Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin – 11/20

Excellent pro wrestling. Moxley came into this match with some obvious physical advantages, AND he has been extra motivated to come out on top so far in AEW. Darby knew he was going to have to go for broke as often as possible to give himself even a slither of a chance.

Naturally, he kicked off the match by wiping out Moxley with a tope suicide before the latter even got to the ring. And the match was on.

Moxley had to scratch and claw to firmly cut Darby off. He out-muscled Darby for a while, but he mistakenly never went for the kill. As such, Darby took every shot he could to go for something big. Sometimes it paid off. Sometimes he literally ended up in his own body bag.

The in-ring story that really put this over the top was that Darby developed a strategy to increase his odds of winning. He kept attacking one of Moxley’s hands. That both simultaneously gave him a better shot of winning because it limited Mox, but it also proved to be his own undoing. He made a desperate play for Mox’s hand late in the match, and that opened him up big time and Mox pounded with an avalanche double arm DDT.

Just a fucking KILLER match that came off like the biggest match in the world. Run it back. (****1/4)

 

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My list of 5-Star Matches

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AEW, TJ Hawke