9 Match Star Ratings For AEW Double Or Nothing 2020
2. Jon Moxley Vs. Mr. Brodie Lee - AEW World Championship Match
Tony Schiavone didn't say it here, but usually, when he's just called a damn war that speaks to the visceral ghoul inside, he says "That was an ass-kicking match".
This was an ass-kicking match, one with a sense of craft that belied its gruesome physicality.
Old business minds rave about Brodie Lee - Arn Anderson in particular - and his advanced ring IQ. Those reverent tones were at odds with a Vince McMahon parody character that had failed to connect, but 'Mr.' Brodie Lee got over here. Usually, when AEW veers towards ECW in its loose rule enforcement, JR has a (justifiable) whinge. Here, he didn't give a toss - very unusual - because the story of the match, and its stakes, demanded no meddling. These were two men with outsize badass auras, immune to any and all pleas for sportsmanship, nailing one another in a pounding bomb blitz, graduating in intensity from C4 to the thermonuclear blast that was the Paradigm Shift stage wreckage spot. That invoked a high-pitched yelp, and informed the finish beautifully.
This was never going to end in a pin, and it didn't. Lee emerged from the hole in the earth done for, in a trance, relying only on the fading embers of his killer instinct to kick out of another Paradigm shift. Moxley smelled the blood and choked him out, somehow contriving to pull off a finish so convenient that few have managed to do it convincingly.
An outstanding bit of business.
Star Rating: ★★★★¼