Hot damn give me all the Serena Deeb. This wasn't quite as good as the match from last October, but it had many of the same qualities, including the primary quality of Serena Deeb being fucking awesome. She spent most of this working the leg again and Shida didn't really give a shit about selling it after a while, but Deeb was not for letting this thing go and Shida was either tapping or leaving in an ambulance. At one point she used the apron cover to wrap the leg and keep Shida pinned in the place, then she wellied her with a chair across the kneecap. They leaned into the street fight stip just enough that it never teetered into propfest territory, and all of the stuff they did do looked like it had bad intentions behind it. The kendo stick shots were filthy, none of them clean, most of them landing at awkward angles where you know they're waking up tomorrow pulling bamboo splinters from various parts of their body. Deeb has that nasty streak in her where she'll find - or make - a way to claw herself back into a fight, and this time she threw half a kilo of powder in Shida's eyes when it seemed like the latter was ready to go on a run. Shida blindly swinging the kendo stick was amusing and again Deeb took a wild shot right in the kidneys. I loved Shida bumbling and stumbling out the ring and grabbing a water bottle from a fan to clear the powder out her eyes. It was sort of goofy, sure, but you knew that with clarity came payback, and if nothing else I was interested in seeing how Deeb would shut her down again. Blocking the rolling knee with the chair was an amazing last-ditch cut-off, then she went bonkers by repeatedly smashing it down onto the same chair and that was even more amazing. I was truly hyped when she won as well and would not have expected to be this invested in a Serena Deeb match only a few days ago. I don't even know who the women's champion in AEW is but I'm hopeful and excited about seeing how Deeb will try to main them whenever the time comes.
Darby Allin v Swerve Strickland (AEW Rampage, 4/29/22)
Nice, fun wee 10 minutes. I love Darby and knew that well enough already, but I've dug Strickland quite a bit from the few times I've watched him in AEW as well, so I was looking forward to this. Darby is certifiable and nobody in their right mind is taking bumps like this in the opening match of a B show. The suplex off the apron was right out the Shawn Michaels at Summerslam '95 playbook and he leaned into Strickland's big strikes like a maniac, the pump kick to the side of the head and the bonkers tope into the knee. Swerve is clearly an incredible athlete and moves like a cat, flipping Eddy Gordo style into a headscissors, doing a clean headspring off the fucking ring apron after clearing the top rope, really impressive stuff. I really liked the early chain wrestling as well. It was slick more than it was gritty, but something like the headlock reversal to the armdrag could come off as overly cooperative if done with less speed than it was here. I'm okay with the finish in theory even if doing it after the wild suplex was strange timing. I guess the Ricky Starks distraction gave Allin some time to recover, though. I'm not sure what Darby does next and having him be involved in a Team Taz thing is probably too much of a re-tread, but I can get behind a potential Starks/Swerve match that I assume they're working towards.
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