8 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (1 Feb - Review)
Ups...
8. Cast-Iron Classic Opens The Show
Jon Moxley Vs. Hangman Page III was an absolutely incredible TV match. Tone, action, storytelling, drama, finish: it was perfect.
Themed on pure defiance, both men were so intent on maiming the other that they didn't care that the bell didn't ring; they brawled around the arena and by ringside to tell the story that they are each utterly consumed by the other at this point. No other aspirations matter.
Neither man can allow themselves to lose this war; losing it feels particularly definitive, damaging to the fictional characters, in a way few other stories do. That is how well it has been told. These men want to short-circuit each other's brains. That's how it started, and that's how they know it must end. The competition, figuratively and literally, is too stiff.
Except it didn't end that way; after both men worked one another's brain tissue over throughout, incorporating one horrific-looking avalanche Death Valley driver, Mox used his superior grappling victory to eke out the win. This thing is so well-told that it got a finish adjacent to "He stole one!" over. That finish wasn't the agreed-upon code, and Page was seething. Brilliantly, before being separated, Page and Mox performed warm-up exercises after the finish, as if they were remotely capable of going at that unreal pace all over again. They were not.
They went out there to f*ck each other up, sold being f*cked up, and pretended they weren't f*cked up in the post-match because they need to f*ck each other up again.
Because this is about pure defiance, pride, and desperate masculinity.