AEW Double or Nothing 2021

AEW Double or Nothing 2021

Jacksonville, FL - May 2021

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this show, the AEW World Champion was Kenny Omega, the AEW Women's Champion was Hikaru Shida, the AEW World Tag Team Champions were the Young Bucks, and Miro was the TNT Champion.

Double or Nothing 2021, the first AEW PPV in awhile to be held in front of a real live audience, opened with "Hangman" Adam Page taking on Brian Cage. Dave Meltzer went wild for this match, giving it 4-and-a-half stars, which, on my scale, would make it one of the top 50 or so matches of the decade. I was impressed by Cage's arsenal of moves - the superplex onto the entrance ramp, the F-5 off the top rope, his counters to the Buckshot Lariat attempts - and Hangman was his usual solid self, but they might've gone overboard with the near-finishes and arguably did "too much" to the point that the match lacked realism. The atmosphere was tremendous, based on the Cagematch reviews, seems to be why this match was so well-received as the crowd in Jacksonville had been starved for live wrestling and this delivered as much high-impact, hard-hitting "movez"-heavy action as possible in a 12-minute match. (3.5/5)

Next up - The Young Bucks, who had turned heel and joined Kenny Omega under the guidance of Don Callis, defended their AEW World Tag Team Championships against Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston. This match, like the opener, pushed the limits of credibility with the amount of bonkers high spots, false finishes, and superkick "spamming" it had. This match lasted about 21 minutes but felt even longer because the opening 3-4 minutes of "babyface shine" happened before the first bell. After getting beaten up to start things off, the Bucks took over and we had an extended face-in-peril stretch with Moxley taking a ton of punishment and getting opened up. I didn't like JR agreeing with Don Callis that the ref should stop the match to check on Moxley. If this were the first time Moxley had ever bled this badly, maybe...but he was an Exploding Barb Wire Death Match the previous show and JR should've known better than to count him out just because he was cut again. Kingston's hot tag got a huge ovation but I didn't necessarily think his execution was all that great as he delivered a bunch of AJPW-inspired offense. This match reminded me of those marathon battles the Four Pillars used to have - and that was clearly the inspiration - but wilder, with less attention to detail and logical escalation of violence or long-term selling. That being said, like the opener, the crowd was red hot for this and if the chief complaint is that they did "too much," that's because they worked their asses off to deliver a PPV-worthy Tag Team Title match and kept their foot on the gas the whole time. Not necessarily my cup-of-tea, but undoubtedly above-average. (3/5)

The Casino Battle Royal match was up next. Pretty unremarkable until the closing stretch as the crowd was hugely behind Jungle Boy, especially when it came down to the final 5 - Jungle Boy and Christian essentially taking on Matt Hardy and his stablemates, Private Party. The Joker reveal of Lio Rush definitely felt "lesser" than previous debuts, though, to be fair, previous debuts in these sorts of matches have never been "landscape-altering" (I'm thinking about Matt Sydal's botched debut, Ethan Page during the Face of the Revolution Ladder Match, and, if I'm not mistaken, Brian Cage at the first Double or Nothing show). (2.5/5)

Cody Rhodes vs. Anthony Ogogo was next. As someone who was not following AEW week-to-week during this time, I was aware that this match and feud was not well-received at the time and, watching this match, I can at least see where some of the problems were. For starters, the positioning of Anthony Ogogo seems completely out of the blue as this was his first AEW PPV appearance and he was set-up to take on one of the company's biggest stars. I can definitely see how the talk of the "Codyverse" started up around this time as it does feel completely disassociated from the rest of the show's storylines. Then, you have the odd UK vs. USA elements, which probably seemed especially weird at the end of a global pandemic. But, really, its the match itself - and the commentary - that were maybe most confusing. Ogogo, a former Olympic boxer, got some good-looking body shots in (that Cody sold well), but really, he worked this match like most every other AEW wrestler, agile and speedy and capable of all sorts of cool moves that I don't think a boxer-turned-wrestler should really build their character around. What made things worse was that nobody on commentary seemed surprised that Anthony Ogogo was performing leap frogs and top rope splashes. This match felt much longer than 10 minutes because of how un-special it was. (2/5)

The TNT Champion, Miro (aka Rusev), defended his title against Lance Archer in the next match. This was good, but not great. I didn't particularly love Archer using a springboard moonsault in the early going as the announcers played up that this would be a "Hoss Battle." I dug Miro's belly-to-belly into the front row, even if it didn't look particularly pretty, and the heelishness he showed by tossing Jake Roberts' "snake" (the snake in the bag was never shown so I assume it was just some rolled-up towels) across the building. This match didn't build as much as it petered out. It was an improvement from the previous match, but not enough for another half-point to be awarded. (2/5)

Hikaru Shida defended her AEW Women's Championship against Dr. Britt Baker, DMD in the next contest. Baker was accompanied to the ring by Rebel, who was walking on a crutch. I can understand why the AEW die-hards (and that may include Dave Meltzer, who gave this match 3-and-a-half stars) would consider this a great match: there were lots of moves, the match went 15+ minutes (a considerable amount of time for a women's match in the US), and both Baker and Shida were over with a crowd that was very much into this show. The match had a "big fight feel." Unfortunately, it was tained a bit by a story that was hard for me to follow and some pretty sloppy moves. The match didn't have the hard-hitting peaks of Shida's similarly uneven match at the last PPV nor did Baker come off as particularly great or special. I was surprised to read multiple reviews on Cagematch praising the final stretch as everything after Rebel's crutch strike (which did not lead to a DQ somehow), there was multiple, visible hiccups as they went into a not-so-great Falcon Arrow and lazy pin (Baker's shoulders were nowhere near the mat as her head was clearly being cradled by Shida's thighs) and a clumsy Curb Stomp on the Championship belt. Too long, too sloppy. (2/5)

I wouldn't call it the Match of the Night - the opening contest, Tag Title match, and World Championship matches were as good or better - but Sting and Darby Allin vs. Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page was next and was quite fun. Sting was super over with the live crowd (no surprise there) and Allin, a high-spot and bump machine whose offense also looks great, was the perfect tag partner for him because he could do so much, get so much sympathy, still look like a tough-as-hell SOB, and then make the hot tag for Sting to come in and clean house with all his signature moves. This match was carried a bit by atmosphere, but the work itself was solid because Sky and Page are good hands. Loved Ethan Page launching Allin into the crowd from the ring. (3/5)

The AEW World Champion, Kenny Omega, put his title on the line against Orange Cassidy and PAC in the next match. I enjoyed most of this match, though I did think it took awhile to really get cooking. The finish was never really in question, but I'll give them credit - up until the last few minutes, there were some great nearfalls that had the crowd in the arena on that night thinking maybe Cassidy might be pull out the upset. The last few minutes is, unfortunately, when this match went from being borderline "must see" to a bit disappointing. There were so many tremendous spots and so many great sequences that I won't dismiss the match entirely, but the finish was so deflating that it ruined the "investment" that the match had built up from me. Sure, Kenny Omega deciding to just go ahead and start hitting PAC with his various championship belts got great heel heat but, because it was a No DQ match, it was perfectly legal all along (the same goes for Don Callis' interference), which meant the referee bump wasn't necessary and, ultimately, it just didn't come off as particularly inspiring or creative to me. Felt a bit "tacked on" like they didn't know how to finish the match in an organic way and just went with the first idea they could come up with, which is unfortunate because so much of the rest of the match was excellent, inspired work. (3/5)

Main event time - Stadium Stampede 2 with Chris Jericho's Inner Circle taking on MJF's Pinnacle. This was not nearly as fun, creative, or entertaining as the first edition, but it held my attention. Maybe that's because I was expecting, at any moment, for them to actually take advantage of the fact that this is a pre-taped, produced "package" and that, because of this, you can play with the presentation quite a bit. In the first Stadium Stampede, we had awesome moments like Jack Swagger staring down a horse, the barroom fight scene, the goofy Jericho football stuff, and Guevara getting chased down by a golf cart. There were multiple callbacks to those moments in this match, but nothing really fresh or new aside from MJF's spectacular performance. His brawling with Jericho was the clear highlight of the entire deal and was also clearly packed with the most "jokes" and viral moments. The finishing stretch between Spears and Guevara was meant to put Guevara over big time, but I feel like a match like this should end with your two biggest stars involved and neither Guevara or Spears fight the bill. (2/5)

I was surprised to see that this show has such a strong Cagematch rating as a whole - a whopping 8.64 - but it only earned a 2.56-out-of-5 Kwang Score. Too many of the matches on this show were disappointments due to either poor finishes, sloppiness, or lacking creativity. By this point, if you've seen one AEW PPV Battle Royal you've seen them all, even if they tend to end with great finishing stretches. The major stars - Mox, the Bucks, Hangman - almost always deliver the goods, but Mox, Cody, and Jericho could be hit-and-miss even back. The Tag Titles match was good (especially if you're into the Bucks style), but the Cody/Ogogo match is rightfully shit-on these days and the second Stadium Stampede was a very pale, poor sequel. 

FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver