How AEW Got A Five Star Match With NO Fans
AEW realised very quickly that things weren't the same and immediately abandoned Blood & Guts, gauged the tone, and pivoted into a new, heightened quasi-canon. Wrestling didn't feel like wrestling anymore, in the traditional sense, and so AEW attempted to function as a real escape via the Stadium Stampede attraction that headlined Double Or Nothing. Pitting the Elite against the Inner Circle, it was a masterpiece of levity. AEW utilised the eerie space that had become synonymous with wrestling and had Hangman Page, on a horse, chase Sammy Guevara across all 100 yards of it. Matt Jackson suplexed Guevara across the same length in a wonderfully wry nod at the editing process. Chris Jericho smashed a mascot in the face with the Judas Effect. It was a silly and vital time that was also a fantastic wrestling match; Hangman Page and Jake Hager worked a western bar fight with insane athleticism; Matt flattened Jericho with a moonsault off the field goal; Kenny Omega, beyond that incredible finish, went weapons-heavy apesh*t in his sequence with Santana and Ortiz.
The Street Fight that built towards it was a fabulous time, too. The four men who worked it surveyed their surroundings and used them to create something awesome. There's a cherry picker over there; let's do a moonsault off it. There's a golf cart; let's do a slapstick gag all the funnier for how absurdly drawn-out it is. There's a traffic cone; let's pop that on my head, and I'll do a f*cking witch's cackle because I'm the irrepressible jackass you need right now.
The Falls Count Anywhere match between the Butcher and the Blade and the Young Bucks - itself built via the planted crowd - was an amazing New World match, too. It started in the Daily's Place kitchen, and sprawled to the ring by way of a production truck and the empty concessions stand in a pulsating, deliriously entertaining brawl that, again, did not remind the audience once of how much better it would be, were fans in attendance. It was incredibly resourceful; if fans were in attendance, we'd never have been treated to the sight of the Bucks superkicking the Blade and sending him up an escalator.
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