AEW Booms/Duds: Cody Rhodes vs. Darby Allin could be the most storied rivalry

Boom: once again, a diversity in squash matches

I continually praise the utilization of squash matches in AEW. I’ve been rather impressed with the diversity in squashes. WWE tends to have predictable squash matches in that there will be the hitting of signature moves and a victory within a minute. That’s not the case with AEW.

Wardlow has undoubtedly been helped by his last two matches. I’m not sure what we call it, but that drop-down knee he hits pulling his opponent off of the top turnbuckle is just nasty looking. His F10 is impressive; think of how much power, force, and speed you need to generate to throw another human being off of your body with such momentum they spin twice in the air before splatting on the mat.

(I feel like Wardlow is the type of wrestler Vince McMahon salivates over.)

My concern is how will Wardlow translate to longer-form matches? He did well against Cody, but that was one match months ago.

“Mr. Brodie” destroying Marko Stunt in deliberate fashion continues the story of Brodie Lee being a methodical analyst of violence and destruction. He purposefully chooses what to do to his prey and when. Stunt was just there to display the destructive nature of Lee.

Like Archer, Lee utilized a different finisher last night and one that looks even more impressive on a smaller opponent. Stunt may have been too short for Lee to hit his discus lariat without making it look like diving clothesline. Lee’s sit-down powerbomb looked so much more brutal than a Batista Bomb or Kevin Owens’ pop-up powerbomb. I felt the pain of Stunt on that one.

This brings me to Shawn Spears. In what was supposed to be a squash match against Baron Black (who looked like he came from Hyrule) and it was anything but that. Guess what, though? It totally works!

Why?

The character of Spears if that of an overly confident and arrogant heel who over rates his skills to his own detriment. Of course he’s going to enter a proverbial squash match and take almost as long as Omega did to defeat Alan Angels last week. That’s just who “The Chairman” is at this point in AEW.

Once again, AEW shows the spectrum of squash matches, including when a “squash” isn’t a “squash” yet still makes sense. I do fear squashes like these were more feasible for AEW with taped shows, so it will be interesting to see how many squash matches we see once AEW returns to live airings beginning next week.