[2022-08-24-AEW-Dynamite] PAC, Rey Fenix & Penta El Zero Miedo vs Kyle Fletcher, Mark Davis & Will Ospreay

[corwo]

I want to preface this review by saying I'm not some Cornette-ian weirdo who hates modern wrestling. I enjoy cool moves as much as the next guy. But I also prefer structure and find it far more impressive when wrestlers can work within a set of limitations. Where most tag matches lose me is when they forego that structure and do whatever they please, entering the ring haphazardly to give the illusion that something's going on underneath the surface.

Ospreay and Fenix kick things off with your standard flippy exchange, nothing you haven't seen a million times before if you're familiar with either competitor. Things break down immediately, and everyone enters the ring for a standoff. There's no pretense of the rules mattering whatsoever. It's all empty and soulless, no matter how flashy the action is. Following a series of dives, Death Triangle isolates Ospreay and decides to work over his leg. That goes about as well as you'd expect. Ospreay's selling ranges from non-existent to overbearing. Ospreay takes out Penta and PAC on the apron and hits a perfect Skytwister Press to the floor.

Aussie Open hammers Fenix with a series of elbow strikes that couldn't hurt a fly. They stay in the ring for a good minute and a half before Penta wipes out Fletcher. Once again, everyone enters the ring at-will, and the referee loses all sense of control. Not only does this make the wrestlers involved look bad for being unable, or in this case, perhaps unwilling to structure a match properly, it also makes the officiating pointless. Why should someone let go of a hold at five if the referee can't be bothered to make them follow the rules in a tag match? Without proper authority guiding the ship, contests become formless, functionally no different than scrambles.

There's one spot in here that particularly irked me. An awful hockey fight broke out betwee The Lucha Brother and Aussie Open, followed by an incredibly choreographed sequence where both teams ducked moves simultaneously. PAC and Ospreay then proceeeded to hit double reverse 'ranas on each other's teammates, then stared at each other blankly, not following up on the offense. It's like they're not even pretending to hurt each other. An Avalanche Brainbuster followed from PAC, but he didn't go for a pin. There's no sense of urgency, intensity, or struggle. Everything is happening in a void, as shown by the cameras focusing on an outside brawl between the Lucha Brothers and Aussie Open.

Fenix went for a top-rope hurricanrana, but Ospreay landed on his feet. That would've been bad enough, but the cameras didn't linger on it for long because Fenix and Penta had to get their crap in with topés. Excalibur remembers Fenix is legal, and a cascade of nearfalls, Canadian Destroyers, and Superkicks follow. PAC hits what must be the 50th dive of the match, meaning none of them carry any weight. If all of that wasn't bad enough, it built up to an angle where PAC got attacked by KIP SABIAN, of all people. An assisted Os-Cutter put me out of my misery after nearly thirty minutes. Post-match, The Elite approached The United Empire. So, not only was this atrocious, it set up a potential nightmare match in the process. An undistinguished husk of a match, one that showcased the worst aspects of everyone involved.

DUD

[paul sosnowski]

Meltzer 5, Corwo 0

[EnviousStupid]

The whole angle with Kip Sabian and PAC being over a minute long and the referee "not seeing any of it" just takes the cake.