13 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (Feb 12)

5. A Restaurant-Quality Slobberknocker

Jim Ross couldn't have come up with a more perfect description than the above for Santana vs. Jon Moxley, which came exactly as advertised.

This was different to any other match on the brawl. It was, at times, a wild, unhinged brawl between two guys who work that style so well, particularly early on. Santana jumped Mox was he was entering through the crowd. They fought all over the arena floor before eventually making it to the ring, with the Inner Circle man trying to take Jon's good eye by jamming it into the ring step's corner. It was grimy as f*ck, even when they got between the ropes, and it was full of thrills.

With the rest of the IC watching on from a luxury suite, Ortiz got involved by spitting booze in Moxley's good eye. He was temporarily blinded. The 'Purveyor of Violence' was swinging blindly, flailing around the dark, but enacted revenge by jamming a thumb into Santana's peeker, seizing the advantage, and smashing him with the Death Rider for the W.

Thematically, this was a home run. It needed to be ugly and it needed to work the storyline. Both checkboxes were marked emphatically.