4. Hangman Page & The Young Bucks Vs The Hardys & Brother Zay
AEW
Another case of The Young Bucks trying and nobly failing to make magic with their heroes, the mere announcement of this match generated familiar cries of nepotism and scorn. The Bucks are the Number One contenders to the AEW Tag Team Championships, but are yet to appear to care about that. It's the bit for them not to care about much, yes, but the work becomes a shoot when any storyline motivation is replaced by a real life one to keep Matt and Jeff Hardy on television.
Brother Zay was there too, and he was unquestionably the most entertaining of all the challengers. His zipping and whizzing, even on defence, stood in stark and awkward contrast to his partners' clunky and/or glacial exchanges with the Champions, but such is life when two decades of mounting injuries exist between them.
There was a very big (and very great) post-match angle later on this show (more on that later) that at very least required Hangman Page to be in the ring in Philadelphia, but this match never once felt like the optimum reason to . Especially when the five percent of doubt around The Hardys and Zay winning the belts was eradicated within the first five minutes. The weight of indifference hung heavy in the tiddy of this one - five people wrestled as if they had little-to-nothing going on in AEW's bigger picture, and that's so odd when two of them don't.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
