8 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (9 Feb)
1. Hangman Page Does What Champions Should Do
A great pro wrestling babyface generates fan support with their guts and their guile, and Hangman Page is the best pure babyface worker in wrestling today.
A great World Champion makes any match they're in feel massive, and Hangman Page is the best World Champion in wrestling today.
After a tremendous, immediate false finish - the only slow count in a genre that AEW has quietly mastered - Archer took Page to the stands and threatened to chokeslam him to the concentrate below. In a pulsating swing of momentum, Page's feet found a thin ledge. This spot was fantastic because you've seen a moonsault a million times, but you've rarely seen one executed so well and so smoothly from such a precarious position.
This match was awesome.
Lance Archer entered into it as a pavement-cold challenger, but was at his theatrical outsize badass best. His character work heated up his control spell beautifully, particularly when he licked Page's thick blood from a fork like it was his death row meal.
A plunder match in 2022 only really works when the spots actually feel painful.
In one superb, very painful-feeling moment, Archer crashed Page against the upturned steps. Black comedy enthusiasts were delighted by a certain death scene in 'Titanic'. Page's bounce off the plunder echoed it so much that Excalibur reacted like it was the most horrifying thing he had ever seen - and he called the Young Bucks at their most demented in PWG.
Earlier in the match, in another great touch that compensated for the reality of a B-level challenger, Dan Lambert cut off the top rope to prevent Page from hitting the Buckshot lariat. At the finish, Page used the ref as a platform from which to propel into his finish, through two tables, and earn the win.
Guts.
Guile.
If the reign maintains this standard, it might just rival the chase.