Wrestling with Work #3 (AEW Dynamite, WWE, TNA, STARDOM, AJPW)

Phew, a full docket today! Scroll down for the previous entries, we’re hitting a lot of stops today, so let’s not waste time.

Title vs Title: Claudio Castagnoli [ROH] vs Eddie Kingston [NJPWS] (AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 9/21/23)

A feel-good win for an all-time struggler. Due to the time limitations and the story they went with, it’s not as good as their main event earlier this year, but the sheer feel-goodery of it is undeniable. Kawada telling Eddie to win with a powerbomb is the kind of wrestling LORE that I have a lot of time for.

Rating: ***1/2

Chris Jericho vs Sammy Guevara (AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 9/21/23)

Messy, but had a moment or two of promise. Sammy is an impressive athlete, but still has so much trouble making any of his matches stick in memory, while Jericho is practically washed, looking embarrassing here in a couple of parts. They clearly wanted this to be something, but I felt nothing watching this aside from a couple of snickers.

Rating: **1/2

AEW International Championship: Jon Moxley (c) vs Rey Fenix (AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 9/21/23)

Now, Moxley’s concussion issue likely colored how this match unfolded, so I’m not judging this matchup solely on this one outing. That said, I felt like these two didn’t really gel in the way you’d want them to, leading to spots that felt repeated and disjointed. There’s still some fun parts here and there, but an ill first step to what I assume will be a rematch down the road.

Rating: **3/4

AEW Women’s World Championship: Saraya (c) vs Toni Storm (AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 9/21/23)

Easily Saraya’s best singles match since returning. Toni is on an all-time run with her Norma Desmond character, and it thankfully translates to her ring work, giving her matches some needed extra spice. The Storm Zero near-fall was really good.

Rating: ***

AEW World Championship: MJF (c) vs Samoa Joe (AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 9/21/23)

Samoa fucking Joe. MJF is no slouch from an in-ring perspective, but Joe feeling himself while kicking his ass was just sublime. The eyes rolling in the back of his head or him yelling in triumph filled my soul. It also felt very good, as a light MJF hater, to see him get his ass absolutely kicked. His “heel” tactics worked for me, as did the finish. This was just a great piece of pro wrestling, a PPV-caliber TV main event.

Rating: ****

Smackdown Women’s Championship: Charlotte Flair vs Natalya (WWE Hell in a Cell 2017)

These two always work quite well together. I found it interesting to see Charlotte really committing as best she can to a limb work match; while she puts a respectable effort into selling the leg throughout, she can’t quite adapt herself to it in the way a smart babyface might. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a failing, she’s cocky and proud even as a babyface, but continuing to use the damaged leg makes her look a bit dumb. By the time the DQ finish happened, I was interested to see more.

Rating: ***1/2

Full Metal Mayhem: Bully Ray vs Jeff Hardy (TNA Impact 5/11/13)

I should have known what I was getting into with this. I thought I’d throw it on to see if this was perhaps fun or maybe with a few cool spots, but nah, this is a waste of time. Both these guys are still wrestling a decade later, despite being varying degrees of past-it here. A lot of boring, pedestrian “extreme” spots, lowlighted by this all-time bad sell from Bubba: https://imgur.com/jXk1Iem

Rating: *3/4

NJPW Strong Women’s Championship: Giulia (c) vs Yuu (STARDOM X STARDOM 2023 ~Osaka Summer Team~)

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest fan of STARDOM, but I’m always open to watching a match from them, as their talent pool is strong. Here, I was pleased to see a physical mismatch with Giulia taking on Yuu, the latter of whom might be my new favorite wrestler. Yuu appropriately shrugged off Giulia’s offense and looked cool as hell doing it; it was a bit hard to buy Giulia coming back and winning, but it was a good ride all the same.

Rating: ***1/2

IWGP Women’s Championship: Mayu Iwatani (c) vs Utami Hayashishita (STARDOM X STARDOM 2023 ~Osaka Summer Team~)

This was very good, albeit it’s somewhat indictative of the things that make it hard for me to invest in a STARDOM main event match. Both women are very capable and hit some real whopper moves throughout while cutting a quick pace, but a lot of times, the matches feel like moves on top of moves with not much connecting them. I also got a bit tired of Iwatani’s dead-fish selling in the back half. Hayashishita has really impressed me in nearly every facet this year and I’m pleased to see her get this spot.

Rating: ***3/4

Hiromu Takahashi vs RISING Hayato (AJPW Giant Series 2023 9/3/23)

A decent one-off akin to a Best of the Super Juniors mid-tournament main event. I’ve seen Hayato once or twice before this, he seems decent but I didn’t get much of an impression off of him here. So weird to see Hiromu assume an elder statesman role in a match like this, I think of him as eternally 21 years old.

Rating: ***