It's kind of nuts how this never happened until now. They were together in WWE for a decent while, yet I don't think they ever actually matched up. Still I'm not sure it would've been as good before, which is maybe a little crazy in and of itself considering Punk has only wrestled about 15 matches in eight years. It started fairly respectful, a pair of grizzled vets squaring off for the first time, two guys who clearly like the idea of wrestling each other. I mean you know Punk would've been giddy as fuck for something like Dustin v Bunkhouse Buck when he was 16. They even did maybe the slowest parity stand-off in AEW history, and any time a parity stand-off spot doesn't feel dumb you know you're in for something special. They introduce the first part of the duelling limb work early when Dustin goes after Punk's arm, then Dustin spills to the floor with a matured blend of his missed crossbody bump. Dustin's leg selling is awesome from then on out, just the right balance of expressive yet restrained, where you know it's a real problem but he isn't oscillating from crushed to bits in a bear trap to fuck it I can do this rope running exchange I'll be fine. The match also gets a bit more tetchy as it goes, and we get the first glimpse of it with Dustin kicking at Punk's arm to create some distance and Punk looking at the camera like "he should not have done that." Punk gets frustrated when he can't put Dustin away and ups the surliness with the stomp and headbutt to the verrrrry low abdomen, then he even does a mocking little Goldust pose. Dustin would try and make inroads by going for Punk's arm again and some of the body part selling was outstanding. I loved not just how those injured body parts would prevent them from hitting certain moves, but how targeting the knee or arm would always provide advantages for whoever chose to take them at the time. There was a great sequence in particular where Dustin is on the apron and Punk kicks the leg away (and Dustin takes a nasty back bump on the hardest part of the ring), then Dustin comes back with a drop-down arm-wringer and Punk goes shoulder-first into the apron. Dustin does the 10 count punches in the corner and flips Punk the double bird, I'm guessing because he saw that little Goldust bit earlier (would assume Punk is now blocked on all social media platforms), but then when he jumps down he jars the knee again and Punk immediately capitalises. By the time they're slapping each other across the face while locked in the figure-four you know you're no longer watching a mere gentleman's contest. And it's rare that you get a satisfying payoff to a match built around limb work so obviously I thought the finish was great. This is an interesting comparison to the early Punk matches, at least in terms of his demeanour and mood. In the Darby match he looked ecstatic to be back, even if he had some ring rust. Now he's got some of the old attitude back and I guess has his eyes on the cowboy fella. This also might be the most CM Punk working as Bret Hart match yet, judging by that twitter video of Bret v Goldust, and CM Punk working as Bret Hart is just about the coolest thing going right now. And that's really not something I thought I would be saying in the year 2022.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment