12 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Dynamite: Bash At The Beach (Jan 15)

1. Come Grind With Me

While some fans may have preferred the opener's cocaine hit, Darby Allin vs. PAC was an excellent slice of TV wrestling and, as you are reading, the night's biggest Up.

This was exactly what it should have been. Darby is the perfect guy for PAC to just torture for 12 minutes because of their contrasting spirits and styles. 'The Bastard' is a nasty, grinding menace who doesn't always get the credit he deserves for making his slow, methodical control segments genuinely interesting to watch, peppering his bouts with only flurries of his prodigious athleticism to avoid too many pops. Allin, meanwhile, is a great ragdoll bumper, a sympathetic seller, and has believable avenues back into the match through his propulsive offense. Much of this bout was him hurling his little body around to combat PAC's stifling onslaught, including a top rope Crucifix Bomb and Coffin Drop to the outside.

Where those bursts of life enough? No. They weren't.

PAC's ring generalship was greater than Allin's hard-to-kill survivability that night, and 'The Bastard' punched his number one contender's ticket with the Black Arrow. A ruthless, meticulous villain, the Brit is purist's delight.